I remember when sprinting made your character pant and wheeze like an obscene phone call.
I remember using Hover to fly up to the blimp in Atlas, and being disappointed when I couldn't land on it.
I remember when the clone characters would come in waves- I might see 10 Ticks one day, then 8 Santas the next, etc.
I remember when folks were paranoid about TP griefing, while others denied that such a practice was possible.
I remember not being used to flight, and getting my head entangled in a fire escape.
I remember getting my beta email
I remember making the worst looking character imaginable
I remember taking my first steps in atlas thinking wow this place is awsome
I remember taking down my first thug and getting filled with joy thinking i have saved this womans purse.
I remember getting to level 6 and taking hover and floating to the top of Atlas statue and plummiting straight down.
I remember the Invasion started and i never saw the UFO's
I remember the streams of people that would flow out of the hospital
I remember cowering in the hospital Lobby till a friend came along and gave me a pep talk
::BUUURP:: Just got in from drinking and hangin' with chicks. I'm a bit drunk. Anyway...
I remember first playing the game in beta and getting out of the training zone and seeing Atlas Park. The music came on and my first thought was. "This is amazing. I'm home." My heart was pounding and I was looking at all the heroes running around doing their thing. I teamed up right away with a fire blaster.
My first teamate/friend invited me on a mission she had trouble with before. She healed, I attacked. We beat a Eidelon boss. We were so happy and typing about how good we felt at that moment. Still brings a smile to my face.
Running all through Atlas for the first time and taking pics of everything and everyone. Still have pics of myself somewhere in my hd just hanging around or jumping.
That feeling during beta when they were going to activate servers again for you to play. I'd spend almost every hour on it.
Feeling scared and lost in Perez Park. That place gave me a phobia. I still get lost and sometimes a bit twitchy being there.
Seeing someone fly for the first time left me in awe. Even though its not the fastest, to me its still one of the most coolest.
In some ways Paragon is somewhat of a virtual home. I never play any other games anymore. This game is where I belong.
Oh and before I learned of how the maps work, I got lost taking the tram and tried looking for the back alley brawler in some back alleys. Yep, I think I was drunk that night. I went to each zone lost and nervous about how tough the bad guys were. 
Truth, Justice and Liberty Server
I remember looking at some MMO news web site (must have been around 1999-2000... waay way back) and seeing this little game called City of Heroes. Being the curious lad I am, I pop in to look. There's no screenshots, no engine, no nothing, not even a pubilisher. I register an account and read over what was there...
I remember all the various incarnations of the game mechanics.
I remember Aura first introducing herself to the community.
I remember seeing a video of Jack talking about the game, trying to sell it to people. And thinking "Man, that looks more like some nutty uncle than a game designer."
I remember when beta invites started to out and people were scrambling for them.
I remember imagining what the game would be like when all we knew were tech notes, essentially.
I remember when news updates came around once every few months and people complained that they weren't fast enough.
I remember when news updates came around once a month and people complained they weren't coming fast enough.
I remember when news updates come around once a week and people complained they weren't coming fast enough.
I remember when updates came around once every few days and people complained they weren't coming fast enough.
I remember when updates came every day and people complained they weren't coming fast enough.
I remember picking out my first powers and designing a charcater using alpha information.
I remember meeting War Witch on top of the Atlas Statue, taking her picture, and then a few days later having to reformat my harddrive.
I remember all the really old fogees.
I remember being one of the middle aged old fogees.
I remember having too much free time and reading the forums more than ten times (fully) every day.
I remember the old art thread that had nearly 200 pages of posts (and that when set to 50 posts per page).
I remember finishing a hero picture and having carpel tunnel because I'd spent two weeks using a mouse to paint digitally.
I remember the first time I translated some ones poorly written, garbled, all around really confusing post and getting accolades for the hilarity of it. Haven't done that recently, maybe I should.
I remember my quickly fading youth... 
I'm sure this was already mentioned, but I remember when the real kiyotee helped out noobs including me.
I remember running the tram circuit before the menu and rounding the conrner to find a huge crowd frozen at the gate becuase the next zone had crashed.
I remember the invaision of atlas park by hellions and clockwork robots and the great fun it was... everyone yelling out locations and happily fighting along side each other.
I remember that the elation of finally getting flight was almost a match for my first steps into atlas park.
I remember when Lost dominated an online interview, when Poison and Boxhead microscopicly analyzed each screen shot, the night Ground Control got banned, the endless speculation during the long dark info blackout, Sabercats other forum programs that listed the top 500 most active posters... and so on and so forth...
Freeze Warning - Ice/Storm 'troller
Shadowed Terror - Dark/Dark scrapper
Crossbones Cat - Dark/Dark defender
Maiden Taiwan - Invulnerable/EM tank
Dark Tomorrow - Merc/Traps mm
Counter Culture Clown - Rad/Rad corruptor
I remember my resolve not to play an MMOG weakening as I heard good things about CoH from source after source.
I remember borrowing a friend's copy to try it out before I plopped down $50, only to find my machine bogging down to a slideshow in the Tutorial (which was not optional) and being soooo disappointed.
I remember my surprise when I updated my graphic drivers and finding out that was all it took to make the game playable.
I remember agonizing about not being able to make my main an exact copy of my old Champions character, and finally going in a new direction for her (glad I did).
I remember reading about the Terra Volta and Faultline trials in the strategy guide and wondering if I'd ever be uber enough to attempt them. (Well, 1 out of 2...)
I remember multiple Atlas Parks, Hovering up to the blimp, hunting in Perez and later Boomtown when they were populated/busy, and trying to enter the exit of the Atlas tram.
I remember figuring out that you could combine enhancements from the tray - they didn't have to both be already slotted in the power. 
I remember poking my head into Skyway from north Kings, seeing some VERY purple Trolls, and beating a hasty retreat.
I remember City of Blasters and all the sound and fury from the Great Smoke Grenade Nerf. I remember when tankers were an endangered species.
I remember venturing into Founders Falls shortly after I got Flight (at 14), getting one-shotted by snipers right through my Personal Force Field, and staggering back to the gate with my tail 'tween my legs.
I remember being invited along on a portal-farming mission shortly before I2, watching my framerate drop to single digits as my teammates chewed through hordes of Behemoths, and going from 17 to 20 in a single night. I remember my instant karma afterward, as I suddenly panicked at the thought I'd outleveled the Vahzilok arc on that character, and my relief when I found out I hadn't.
I remember finding out, in-game, about Christopher Reeve. I remember wearing a long red cape for a week.
I remember when my bubbles made that noise ALL THE TIME.
I remember the old Storm Kick, and how sad I was when it went away, because it went so well with Flurry on my speedster ... I don't care if the new animation is shorter and more efficient, I wanna hit guys 20 times per attack cycle!
I remember when the team seek window only showed people that were seeking team and in your zone, and when teleport and resurrect didn't have an option to refuse (and teleport-griefing was rampant as a result).
I remember when the signs on and in City Hall were sharp-looking 3D gold lettering, not really bad flat textures (to make it easier for the foreign editions to translate, I guess). I want it changed back - and while you're at it, go back to the old font/signage for the highway signs and zone exits!
I remember reading the "Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls." post as just another complaint about in-game idiocy, before it spawned.
I remember when people went after Hamidon to say they'd brought him down, not for their sixth Hami-O.
And yes, I remember the Fifth Column - despite the clumsy attempts to eradicate them from Paragon and its history.
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
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I remember when my bubbles made that noise ALL THE TIME.
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That was horrible!!! Speaking of which, I remember when they let us post how to mod sound files threads
I remember during beta that they called my main a "lame red Guyver ripoff"
(Now they comment on how cool the outfit is.)
I remember that during beta and the first few weeks tripping over all the other blasters, and having trouble finding a group.
(Now I'm tripping over all the invites I get if I plz plz join their mission/tf/etc, cause they need a blaster)
I remember being at the old forums, waiting for the next installment of Yankee Daring's origin story.
(best origin story ever)
I remember War Witch.
And when she was first introduced to us.
Hehe...
I remember joining my very first SG on the pre-beta forums, the Dark Alliance. Lang Chi interviewed me for it, and I was there with Black Mage, Rhyno, Syphon and many other cool old-timers.
Just saw Sabre's post and him mentioning the coin beta shots.
I recently saw a one-page advertisement for the German COH at BurgerKing, and one of the 3 screenshots shown is of the coin beta meeting!
Poison � Sabbath
I remember my first encounter with the Police Drones...and thinking I could aggro huge groups of villians +3 levels on me and let the Drone take em out for me (with me getting the XP)...
ended in dissapointment 
Some points for me, note: this is from my perspective, and I live in Australia.
- Hearing about CoH, and going wow cool, I love Superheroes, sounds awesome. I wanna try it out for a month and see how it goes. (I've been playing to this day since a week from release
- After hearing about it, ringing every computer game shop near me to get a copy.
- Hearing some shops say '2 weeks', and some checking with their wholesaler to say it wasn't released in Oz.
- Remembering myself going "[Censored]".
- Remember reading International websites saying that they wouldn't ship the product to OZ.
- Remembering that I emailed CoH tech support asking if I could purchase the product online.
- Remembering them telling me that it wasn't possible. (I should still have the email around here somewhere if you don't believe me)
- Remembering myself going "[Censored]" x 2.
- Asking people I know that had MMOG experience tell me that usually MMOGs are availble to purchase online.
- Spending a number of hours searching and searching to see if I could get it online. Finally some luck with COH's publisher's website.
- Remembering myself going "F'n COOL".
- Remember reading the manual going way cool.
- Remember doing a little dance 'cause I was excited.
- Remember convincing my flatmate to start playing.
Some in game mechanics:
- Remembering saying that Cryptic sure knew how to dress up a polygon (with reference to the female superhero chars)
- Remembering how long it was to get my original superhero outfit "just right".
- Remembering a teammate asking me why I didn't have Invincibility up. (I was stone/stone tank, he hadn't seen a non-Invulnerability tank before
- Remembering getting teleport for the first time and being dissappointed it wasn't like click teleport, then click somewhere on the map to teleport. But then realising later that would make the power too uber compared to the others.
- Remembering my fellow SGs using the phrase 'tp for my bunghole' when after teleport friend. (Beavis and Butthead reference)
- Remember street sweeping so I could hurry up and get to lvl7 to get into Parez.
- Remember reading IP and TI thinking, it's going to be ages before I check out these cool places.
- Remember seeing police bots at lvl40, and thinking I doubt I'll ever see that lvl. (My tanker is at lvl45, and I have a troller at lvl38).
- Remember going into Dark Astoria for the first time, and seeing the 'ghost effect'. Still to the this day it "trips me out". Devs - nice touch btw. I love those little things that add to the overall atmosphere.
- There are a number of others that pretty much have been said before.
-- nucleon
I remember ordering CoH via Airmail and receiving it in a chunky, poorly wrapped, twisted and battered package from Canada (I'm not sure I even ordered it from Canada).
I remember thinking, damn this better be worth £40 (that's $77 at the current exchange rate).
I remember realising it was worth £40.
I remember the giant tapeworm.
I remember when Atlas was called Bob.
I remember MacAllen. (Thanks again Mac. Best wishes!)
I remember Coyote. (I still get a bit teary in Outbreak when I talk to him.)
I remember when no supergroups exisited because the game was only at the initial stages of planning, yet people came together anyways to form them.
I remember reading about this group of small designers working on what could be the comic/video game lovers dream and tracking down their development board.
I remember having the first featured screenshot.
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I remember purple 5th column boss in my level 15 "find the escape route" or "arrest education officer" mission.
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I remember never even thinking this was a bug and taking an hour to whittle him down, with multiple trips to hospital and back to contacts for inspiration refills.
Kyle Al'Mordu - Lvl 50 MA/SR Scrap
Fusion Force!
TRIUMPH
I remember ignoring the game because MMOPRGs never hook me past the initial month and I was tired of disappointment. A friend last March (has it been a year?) invited me into the public beta on the very last couple of days of testing. He never quite seemed to be into the game oddly enough -- he wasted untold time trying to show me how to combat jump your way up a skyscraper, a very useless talent if you ask me. 
I'm still playing a year later, even though my friend stopped playing about a month after release. Finally an MMORPG for people that don't like MMORPGs actually worked on me.
I remember being whacked by purple connning Rikti during the spectacular last-day beta invasion event in Atlas. As I watched from my corpse, a couple hundred testers battled the Rikti into submission. No in-game events I've seen since then have quite lived up to that. 
I remember my very, very, very first mission ever after the game's release. I think it was with a half dozen people in a warehouse mission in Atlas, somewhere near the Perez Park entrance.
I remember my blasters initially kept getting into trouble cause I didn't know you could set up "cancel target" and "cancel power" hotkeys so I'd keep tapping the attack keys too fast, and queing up way too many attacks. So many "Why did you aggro????" comments before I figured it out.
I remember my very first hero, an electrical blaster named 9-Volt, and how all my frustration with him caused me to delete him and create a martial arts scrapper Blackjack and an ice blaster Igloo, who both remain among my highest toons. Sometimes I wish I'd kept 9-Volt around -- I think he would've worked once I knew what the heck I was doing.
I remember how half my friends list disappeared after WoW released, though a few have trickled back to COH over time.
I remember how some heartache in my real life made it impossible for me to enjoy COH for about 6 weeks or so (before, during, after Xmas time) and it was so painful cause COH was like a happy drug normally. Now things are back to normal. 
I remember how my rifle/devices blaster Crusasder seemed doomed because of poor power selections. (pre respec-era) So he rotted in mothballs for months before the free holiday respec saved him from the dustbin and made him one of my favorite toons. I also remember how Crusasder was supposed to be Crusader, but I made an inadvertent typo...
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I remember purple 5th column boss in my level 15 "find the escape route" or "arrest education officer" mission.
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I remember never even thinking this was a bug and taking an hour to whittle him down, with multiple trips to hospital and back to contacts for inspiration refills.
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Hah, I just got a lvl 25 tank to beat him for me. A lvl 20 boss in a lvl 15 mission?! Ouch! My last hostage was right next to him, too.
I remember 4 isntances of Atlas in Triumph server.
These days the players have now leveled up and you rarely see an instance of any one zone.
I remember when lower levels actually hunted in the Sewers. Haven't done that since beta.
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I remember being the only person in Atlas Park - or any of the other zones for that matter. Just me and the mobs. So when I saw players actually log on during the first days of beta it was...the...coolest...thing...ever.
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:-) I remember that first day. Didn't see you, but did see "Pinky", played by Aura, who teamed up with Phantasm and me.
i remember when The Lost weren't labled as Lost
(probably been mentioned, but that's one of my fondest memories)
i remember CROSSBOWS!
i rememberd when we were stresstesting the zone instance system and we were allt o go from atlas to kings... when we arrived alot of ppl fired of aoe powers and the poor server just keeld over and died... or when we broke the spawnings system in outbreak... and a dev just came on global chat and told us we broke it.. that was kinda funny... But my best memory.. the first time they showed the CC to the ppl and Posion had his character created and we all were all giddy and posted how cool it looked... It was realy pretty close to the pic he had of him.
I remember designing my character based on the Alpha powersets and the endless discussions we'd have on the old boards poring over every word, every turn of phrase from the devs and what it might mean.
Invulnerability
There's nothing that gives a hero confidence more than the ability to walk into trouble and know he can't be hurt. Invulnerability allows just that, although there are limits. This invulnerability can protect a hero even more effectively than the best armor, although it takes time and experience for heroes to truly develop their power to full effectiveness. Invulnerability is selective, however. Just because the hero makes himself immune to one form of attack does not mean he's protected from all dangers. For example, immunity to kinetic attacks offers no help against cold or energy attacks.
Power Punch
A halo of energy surrounds the hero's hand, imbuing a single punch with the power to knock out a raging bull with a single blow. A Power Punch is the most devastating hand-to-hand attack known. Masters of this ability can focus the energy to penetrate armor and cause concussive damage that knocks foes across the room. The Power Punch does have its drawbacks however. It takes a lot of energy to use a power punch and heroes who use the ability too often find themselves drained and weary. Furthermore, a number of villains have developed limited or total resistance to energy attacks, making a power punch no more effective than a bare-knuckle blow.
Thanks to whoever dug up that rpgplanet link! Now that I look at these, Corporate isn't so different from how I imagined him after all. Just needs his base and some way to deal knockback.
p.s. 5th Column, you are not forgotten!
I remember gadgeteers and superior humans
Boxhead's site.
I have a video on my computer with the modified date/time of 4/23/2003(my system crashed and I redownloaded it)
I remember watching that the first time at work, I think all day at work, and then at home too.
I remember when the weekly updates would come, and there'd be screenshots, and everyone would overanalyze the screenshots(yours truly included)
I remember the lack of a standalone character creator led those like Phantom and BvS to become legends of character artwork, and of course the big hero art thread.
Lots of stuff to remember, interesting stuff to be sure, but it's good not to dwell too much in the past.
I look now at Crey Industries, run by D'Arkaine, it continues to improve.
The cards created by various board members here, are awesome work.
The contests being held bring out the best of the best, not to mention the comic book, the back pages there are real gems.
Good stuff, I'm sure there's more to come.
-Ink
Inkblaster - 50 - NRG/NRG
I remember when missions were frontloaded.
I remember when Dark Miasma wasn't good at all.
I remember when the lvl cap was 40 (I joined in about a week before they changed it).
I remember watching an AR/Dev throw some smoke grenades onto a group of +3s and solo them without taking a single hit.
I remember a time with no respecs, no capes, and no badges.