I like it, but you should add the major "nerfs" such as suppression and Hammy-O's, and maybe something about the supergroup battles on test with the devs. Great job though, a definite bookmark!
Heh, good old memory lane. A few things you might find worthwhile to add:
1) The first big nerf was actually to hasten (predated smoke grenade by 2-3 weeks). You used to be able to perma-hasten with just the initial slot. This was changed back in May to an incrediblly long recharge time (impossible to perma), but it was later adjusted to its current form after mass protests on the forums.
2) One of the biggest early bugs was getting the Vahz disease permanently. Players had to petition GMs to get cured. This was fixed sometime in May/June as well.
3) The tfm fix and the purple patch both came at the beginning of June. TK (mind control) was also changed at this time -- it used to be an ally fly power.
4) Issue 1 was released at the end of June.
5) MA wasn't the only powerset to get new animations in I3. Prior to this, katana's animations were all exactly like the broadsword ones.
6) The winter event? Powerlevelling, ice skating, and snowball fights -- who could ask for anything more?
7) It was only live for a couple of days, but there was a brief bug that completely removed all villians from Galaxy City. Citizens didn't know what to do with their purses, police officers had nobody to run from, and heroes rejoiced at their rare victory over the forces of villany.
We can't forget all of the Issue #2 Fixes to Dark Miasma because this was BIG news for all those dark defenders out there (all two of them).
Off the top of my head:
-Darkest Night: To-hit debuff enhancements now work in Darkest Night
-Shadowfall: Shadowfall's resistance buff can now be enhanced
-Howling Twilight: Rez amount per enemy of howling twilight increased; howling twilight's range increased.
-Dark Servant: Dark Servant can now move and has a duration and recharge time in accordance to other pets. Dark Servant no longer uses fearsome stare.
-Twilight Grasp: Twilight Grasp's heal is no longer based upon enemy level, it is a fixed amount.
*later in issue #2, but before issue #3*
-Twilight Grasp: Animation time for twilight grasp greatly reduced.
Ham's! That's right - I remembered those just as I was falling asleep last night. Of course, I forgot them again today. Lots of good info in here, I'll see what I can get added soon. (Suddenly there are a lot of TF's to do. 
)
(Suppression is in there! Next to last entry.)
Some of the first heroes to forty were */Fiery Tanks, due to overpowered Burn patches that used to be nearly twice as big as they are now. I think they were initially reduced in size in update 1, but details are foggy.
*/Fiery Tanks received many postitive changes in Update 3. You used to have to use Perma-Healing Flames and Burn(!) patches to protect yourself from many status effects. Status protections, except for Toxic Resistance and Immobilization Resistance, were rolled into Fiery Embrace and Plasma Shield. The Blaster Fire Manipulation secondary took a hit as a result of the changes--they used to be able to get status protection from their own Burn patches, but it was removed.
I believe the game reached its apex of subscribers during August, 2004 with over 180,000 active accounts.
Before Update 1, Bone Daddies were much stronger than they are now. They could shred heroes with a powerful Shadow Maul. Many squishies suffered defeat by standing too close to their Tank.
Early Skull and Hellion missions received spectacular graphic updates in Update 2. They were plain office maps before. Council/5th, and many others have followed suit, with their own special set decorations.
Evasive description mode: Around the time of Update 1 there was a small change made to certain costume options to smooth out suggestive graphical protruberances. 
Lovely guide. Highly useful for directing people to who played around launch (briefly), and are coming back now.
Another small item, which I *THINK* was with issue #1:
They added lighting at night for the flag on top of city hall in response to player comments about the flag not being lit.
I think that they also animated it at the same time (it used to be static), but not sure if I'm remembering when that second change went in.
CoH Codex : Demo Models/FX/MOVs : Demo Info
Arc 111022: "Doctor Geist and the Scientific Method"
Yep, they did add that light! The flag just stuck out all the time, though, until Issue 2 and the capes. Something else that needs to be added!
[ QUOTE ]
Some of the first heroes to forty were */Fiery Tanks, due to overpowered Burn patches that used to be nearly twice as big as they are now. I think they were initially reduced in size in update 1, but details are foggy.
[/ QUOTE ]
That would be Fire/*, it's a primary set and not secondary. 
The first (live) changes to Burn was before I1 but after the Training Room (test server) came online. Burn was about twice as expensive, recharged 3 times as fast, did more damage/tick and had a larger area. Those factors were all reduced (or for recharge, increased), the initial decrease gave a smaller AoE and less damage than Burn has now though.
Back then you had to create a character on TR to have one there. There was no copy tool until right before I1 arrived.
Provoke took a big hit then too, the recharge time got increased from 3 seconds to what it is now and it went from auto-hit to requiring a to-hit check.
The 90% resistance cap was introduced around this time too, I can't remember if it was before TR went up or after. I3 saw the arrival of even lower caps for non-Tankers, Kheldians got 85% and the rest of the ATs have to make do with a 75% cap.
Smoke Grenade took the hit before I1 (I'm 90% sure about that).
-Recharge & -Speed also took a hit before I1. -Recharge was prevented from causing more than 4 times base recharge and -Speed now caps at 10% of base speed. Previously there was no cap to either and you could force a mob into near infinite recharge and complete immobility with enough stacking. The immobility was used by Fire/Dev or AR/Dev Blasters with Caltrops slotted for mass -Speed in combination with location based DoTs. The infinite recharge bug was used on Hamidon & Mito's to turn them into harmless puppies.
Hamidon was presented as a Trial when it was added during the beta.
[ QUOTE ]
Another small item, which I *THINK* was with issue #1:
They added lighting at night for the flag on top of city hall in response to player comments about the flag not being lit.
I think that they also animated it at the same time (it used to be static), but not sure if I'm remembering when that second change went in.
[/ QUOTE ]
They animated the flag to flap like real cloth with the intro of capes in issue 2. Also, someone above said that Katana animations were revamped in issue 3. They re-did those animations and re-named the powers in that set during issue 2.
I had a Katana scrapper at the time, I liked the changes but ended up deleting it because I had picked DA as the secondary.
Very nice site Zloth. While I think it would ruiin the feel to include all of the balance changes on this page, it would be very handy and informative to have another linked page detailing all of the tweaks, adjustments, improvements, and downright nerfs that we have seen throughout the life of the game. We used to be able to access these patch notes directly on the main site, but no longer. I may still have some of the patch notes. If you need them, let me know via PM.
A complete list of all patch notes ever would be nice but I'm not sure who would read them. Maybe folks could use control-F a lot to find what they want? I need to finish what I have now first, though.
What I would really like to see is each individual power's history. Have a picture of the power being used (or just the icon if it has no graphic or animation) then a list of all changes to the power since launch. The problem is, that would be a heck of a lot of work. I want to see this but I don't want to see this bad enough to actually do it.
Smoke nerf before I1.... yeah, I think that's right. Hammidon is kinda borderline for a trial but I should note it.
Hmm, I'm fairly certain the smoke nerf was after I1. I started after the cap was raised to 50, and I remember the smoke grenade discussions.
How blasters needed the stackable uber Accuracy Debuff to survive because of how frail they were. I do think it was before I2 came out though.
Let's Dance!
All patch notes EVER, you say?
NINJA!
EDIT:Was reading the pathc notes and found this, the third patch:
[ QUOTE ]
Fixed exploit that allowed item and influence duping
[/ QUOTE ]
UniqueDragon was right!
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All patch notes EVER, you say?
NINJA!
[/ QUOTE ]
All of those are after I1.
You're right. CuppaJo is a stinking liar!
You might want to put something in about perma-powers. Perma-Unstoppable was removed with issue 3 while Perma-Mog and Perma-Elude were removed with issue 4.
Jane Little Inv/Axe Lvl 50
Jane White Dark/Regen Lvl 50
Jane Dark BoardSword/Inv Lvl 50
Dig For Fire Fire/Axe Lvl 50
Jane Gravel Fire Melee/Stone Lvl 50
Well, it only goes back to 5/11/04, but there are some archived patch notes over at the CoH Vault at IGN.
Plus I don't think they include major update notes, just the patch notes.
Wow, thanks Balshor! That should help muchly!
(Edit - sorry, didn't read to the bottom. Sigh)
Issue 3 (I think): Added twirlies to the character selection screen (rotation)
CoH Codex : Demo Models/FX/MOVs : Demo Info
Arc 111022: "Doctor Geist and the Scientific Method"
Updated my updates guide so it's now current. (This should ensure that the fixes on Test right now will go live in less than 24 hours. )
There was one change I was curious to see but didn't find anywhere... Mobs in missions and outside spawn dynamically according to your team size but people still insist on resetting the mission because they added another team member, even though no one has entered the mission and nothing has spawned yet. I've heard talk that dynamic spawning was added in issue 2 or somewhere thereabouts but have never seen any official confirmation.
Its kinda funny how just when you think everyone gets it... a dbl xp weekend comes along and old players come out of the woodwork and they're resetting missions for no reason again...
Yeah! Jeesh, I had forgotten about that. I think outdoor spawns have always been dynamic but indoor missions were set as soon as you went in. I think it was before Issue 2 though, maybe more like Issue 1. I don't see it in the patch notes anywhere.
I've written up a little history of major updates to City of Heroes and crammed it full of screenshots. This should be fun for us old coots who want to remember the distant past (2004
) and handy for folks who have been on long breaks from the game.
I'll update this as new updates come out on the live servers. Enjoy!