When did your toon come alive for you?

I was wondering how & when people become personally invested in their toons.

For example, I was recently playing my new FM/WP brute, which was my first serious attempt at villainy, when I had the following experience. I was underground and beating up Snakes with surprising ease. In the middle of this I realized, "Man, the meanest, baddest monster in this Snakehole is ME." I now love my violent little, I mean big, psychopath.

Anybody else have similar "A-HA!" moments where it all comes together for you? Or is it a process of gradually becoming more familiar and comfortable with your character?

most of my toons, i usually played them, but certain toons really felt awesome

my most awesome toons are my main (Necrotech Master lvl 50 ninja/dark mm) and my alt toon (Necrostone lvl 50 dark/stone brute)

my main always feels like a real villain, he has 320 hp more than a normal mm at lvl 50 and can run mishs with no pets on lower difficulties

my stone brute always cranks the diff up a lot because when im playing him i feel trully unstoppable.

The A-HA moment for my grav/kin controller Sorina Tavarisch (my second 50) came as the result of a joke. Got invited by an SG mate to help her beat up on Anti-Matter (her on an Inv/En tank, me on the grav/kin troller). We go stomp on him, and as we exit the portal, my character whips out a cell phone and 'calls' Positron to tell him, "Hey, we just kicked your Praetorian version's a**... da... da... don't worry, you're better looking... mm-hmm... we'll discuss it over coffee... da... okay, see you later."

My SG mate cracks up laughing and immediately tells our whole SG, "Tava's in love with Positron." Which led to injokes, a developing storyline, and the next thing I knew, Tava took on a life of her own.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

The day I created them.

Most of them do when I create them but then I (as asked above) start out with a very detailed concept in mind before starting, I'll mull over a characters costume for hours however because the concept may be good but the look isn't just right.

Varrickette (my Night Widow) came alive for me now I've got her nearly completely IO'd out, she's a lean, mean killing machine and taking on massive mobs on the -1 x8 makes her feel all the more like an unstoppable killing machine.

Most of my existing characters are ones I've actually been running in other RPGs or in my writing for quite some time; so the Ah-Ha! moment took place a while ago.

On the other hand, I do have a few that have been existed only in City of Heroes/Villains and a few stick out for me.

Draconic Rage (SS/Fire Brute)- Mutant rich boy who went from being Biff Biffington, a silver spoon pretty party boy to a seven foot tall silver lizard/dragon. My "Awesome!" moment for him was when I was first leading him through the snake caves in Mercy. In my mind the snakes all started calling him "brother" and insisting he must be one of them. His personality and general disdain for everyone who would try to define or pigeon-hole him grew out of that instant.

Re-Stitched (grav/energy dominator)- After watching her scientist lover die because his partners rushed their wormhole project rather than listen to his warnings, she vowed vengeance on them and any other irresponsible scientist. Her defining moment? The first "kidnap the scientist" paper mission. She did NOT turn the scientist over to the people who hired her to capture him. Well... maybe a piece at a time.

Flexible Physics (grav/kinetics controller)- Originally a Professor of physics who created a power suit that enabled him to effect gravity. Strangely enough his moment was in the Tailor. I tried the robot feet costume part and then revamped his entire character bio. A tragic car accident involving a drunk driver left him missing half of one leg and both this arms. He was my first, but not only, physically challenged hero.

Changes depending on the character. Some get that way from the get-go, others will be an RP moment, or something happening during gameplay (being the last one standing - or the first one falling a little too often, or just some "This is great" moment.)

Too many characters and too many moments to really *name.*

See my Guides and Tutorials

I have a ton of characters but the one that really sticks out is my first 50.. My Taxibot Ill/Emp Controller after I had Confuse and Superior Invisibility I found myself inside a mission stealthing and turning entire mobs against themselves. I'd add my attacks to help them along and then when there was one dazed, confused, and half dead villain left I'd walk up, turn off the stealth and finish them off. After a couple mission I realized that I wasn't even taking damage... OMG I am awesome!

Best part was that abilty and the rush never stopped I was able, when I felt like it, to solo with her all the way to level 50 and did all the missions from Indigo and Crimson turning Sappers and Gunslingers into my own little puppets and letting themm along with my Phantasm and Phantom Army, take out everything else. OMG.. I can make MALTA cringe!

Of course being a Taxibot I had Recall Friend so it became very easy to find task forces since I had about the best stealth available aside from a Stalker and I had my first ever Task Force Commander with her as well.

before I created her I had serious altitis and after 2 years in game had exactly zero 50s. A combination of being determined to get SOME character to the top and her ability to solo or team well lead to a 50 level in about 6 weeks.. that was with no power leveling, no farming, and only playing a few hours a night since I worked long hours including one extra weekend a month at that time. She is my serious badger with closing in on 500, yes I still play her, and after I got her to level 50 I found it a lot easier to continue and now have 19 50 levels and another 8 characters between level 47 and 40 as I post this today. I guess you could say she not only came alive for me but showed me the way to create a small army of high level characters of almost every archtype .. the only 2 AT I don't have at least one 50 level on are Warshades (have one at 43 right now) and Peacebringers (Sorry I don't have any lol). Am I still an altoholic? yeah but now I am one that when the call goes out over the globals saying "I am forming a ____ TF" I send a message back saying "Hey I'd like to do that... what do you need? Because I can bring anything you like and they are all 50 levels!" LOL

For me it's the second they step off the boat into the tutorial mission and get to admire their costume design in all its moving glory. If nothing happens there, it's all over.

After that another one comes at about level 12 or less, depending, when I get that cool power that really sets them apart as their AT with that power set (say AS on a stalker). My first use of it on a foe goes something like "POW! Whoa, did you see that?! AWESOME!!"

For any Mastermind I've ever played, it comes every time I get that next pet and feel extra fearsome.

Right now its my current lvl 50...Neowolf an elec/regen scrapper, he came alive with his 4th set of purps lol...no seriously like soooo many others who have posted theres, my story (bio) the emotes (howl bind) a few sayings like "woof" and "Lets Bounce" (from my powers thunder strike and lightning rod) and his survivibility and plus he's a tribute to my fav Wolverine and I have been trying that (the tribute thing) for yrs. with a char. sooooo yeah he got it goin' on

When other characters piloted by other people became emotionally invested in them.

Most of my toons serve a purpose in game example;Merkuris fire/kin troller is my farmer,Pacte De Guerre rad/rad corr is my badger/sf/av/gm toon,etc.I have 8 50's and each one sorta fits a specific niche,I'm sure with GR coming out it will change.

I view my toons more as tools for a specific purpose,if any of them "came alive" for me it would be my Bane he's about the closest thing that I have to just play and have fun with.

It's some odd intersection of costume, concept, personality, roleplayability, and powers. If two of those click, I'll probably play the character to the 20s-mid 30s and get bored. If three click, they'll get to the mid-30s or so at least, then get pushed a little higher when I can find TFs in their range. If four click, I'll probably push them straight to 50 in a frenzy and then play for a few weeks afterward.

If all five click... well, that's only happened once, and it resulted in me spending months marketing to trick out the character's everything.

For me it's somewhere around level 15.

I try not to get attached to a character before that. I'm getting used to the powers, seeing if the costume fits the persona I want. However from time to time a few grab me.

Rotten Luck my Zombie Hero. The first Tanker that I liked. He is a Willpower/ Dark Melee. I remember running with him and then I had him say during a fight "Hey $Target I don't know about you but your sister was finger licking good!" Of course I taunted at the same time... The entire team was laughing and a string of Dead Zombie Jokes came after that. Still the only Tanker that I play.

Just a few week ago I was bored and built a Succubus Villain. Using a Mind Control/ Psionic Assault Dominator. Battle wise I had the build before. But this time something was different it Felt right that the concept and build fit like a glove. By level 4 I had her personality down pack and RPing with ease. <.< The Demon wench Seduced me!

For me it was when I hit lvl 47 and began to IO out my elec/Shield scrapper with IO's and influence that I had crafted and collected from issue 13 and 14. At first it was going to be a fire/Shield toon, but when Electric melee was announced I knew it was fate.

One Million Volts was always fun to play leading up to lvl 50 but once I was able to put in those IO's everything changed. He went from a decent scrapper to an unstoppable force. I really felt Super with that toon and it's very hard for me to play other toons because of how Super that scrapper is.

People noticed too. After teaming with me on TFs they tell me that they want to make an Elec/Shield scrapper. Or I'll see one and the person tells me that they made that toon because of teaming with me.

My current main, a Fire/Shield Scrapper named Draconic, really came alive to me when I got Against All Odds, then again when I got Shield Charge. The combo started out crazy fun for me from the get go, but he really took off at that point and I've never looked back. Now that he's level 50, he's the first character I've completely IO'd out, and is my go-to toon for missions, TFs, raids, etc. He's pretty much spoiled me for my other characters, heh.

Then two of my other characters, Startup and Webspider (AR/Mental Blaster and Crab Spider respectively), really popped out to me from the get-go because of the concepts I had for them, which really allowed me to get into the whole vibe of the character. Leveling 'em to 50 wasn't hard because I enjoyed the concepts so much.

Wild Streak - Lv. 50(+3) Beast Mastery/Sonic Resonance Mastermind, Amnesty - Lv. 50 Staff Fighting/Dark Armor Stalker

It was actually after I hit 50 with Melora, my ice tank troll. I guess I made a hell of an impression on another player when we met by chance. Next day, I'm running around Faultline with a friend and get a /tell. So I hopped over to see a fresh stone/ss tank looking quite similar to Supa-Trolls. The rest was history.

For most of my characters, it's when I do something that really, really suits them. Like my Ghost Widow-obsessed fortunata doing the Seer Marino arc. While there were a few changes to the storyline I made in my head, my fortunata was getting excited at the idea of being involved. Similarly, when my Longbow spy Night Widow got her Longbow costume. Then she was real.

My main however, was a quick mock-up when issue 11 hit the test server. I wanted to try out DB/WP, and I wanted them to be Ouroboros-themed. I played this guy on test more than I played on live, as he was my first character that I felt had any meaning; not just an AT with a name and costume. When issue 11 came to the live servers, I realised that I wasn't happy about it. This would mean leaving 'Storm Survivor', my new DB/WP scrapper on the test server, to return to my dull characters.

The solution was simple; remake him on live, and take on the persona of my new main.

Lvl 10 is the "it" level to decide if A) I like the powerset combination B) character concept I came up with ... enough to C) grind all the way through the game "A G A I N"...

Level 10 is also when I commit to writing the story into the "Bio" box.

Capt. Stormrider, my flagship character, was never intended to be anything of note. Like all my characters, I did take the time to write a story for him by level 10, but he still wasn't anything more than an experiment with Corruptors. Just a hastily thrown together Elec/Storm with a space pirate motif.

Then came a Mayhem with my friend. We were doing a Smash & Grab side-mission and everything was going to hell in a hurry. We had tripped far too many alarms, and were soon packed into a tight space surrounded by Longbow, and time was running short. I was the first to go down, with the last safe in sight. My friend tried to retreat, but failed to do so in time. As he went down, I hit an awaken and stumbled my way over to the safe, grabbing it with only seconds to spare and Longbow coming back to finish me a second time. With nearly no health, and little endurance, I hit Hurricane and plowed straight through to freedom, shouting "You will remember the day you almost caught Captain Stormrider!!" over voice chat.

That was when I realized how much I loved the character, and since then I have invested more resources into developing him than any other before or since.