How I Celebrated the Six-Year Anniversary

I really didn't plan this as part of a celebration for the game... but it kind of worked out that way.

First of all, when I couldn't find a team right away Saturday morning, I did something I've been wanting to do for a while. I logged in each of my level 50 characters (gotta get the 6th year badge anyway right?) and proceeded to talk to pedestrians with named that started with M and N. I made notes for each character -- how many hours logged, how many times logged in, how many badges, and whether they had field crafter or task force commander (and what pieces they needed to complete task force commander). I've never been one to track my characters this way, so I was curious what I might find out.

The verdict? I play too much. But it was interesting to compare. The level 50 toon with the least hours logged, 54 hours, was no surprise because she was level pacted to my other account all the way to 50. But another toon that I legitimately played to 50 had only 97 hours logged. On reflection, this was the toon I started up during the double experience weekend last Fall. Three others were at 115 hours, 135 hours, and 147 hours. So I can get a toon to 50 in 115 to 140 hours of regular play on mission/task force teams.

On the flip side, my "main" has 648 hours logged, and my first 50 ever (who I have hardly played in years) has 512 hours logged. Also, my first toon Organica, who is only 43, has 383 hours logged. So yes, it used to take much longer to get to 50, and yes, I do play too much. I have two other toons at over 300 hours logged and six other toons at over 200 hours logged.

So then, after that... I got asked to join a manticore task force. Well,why not? We set this for an hour and we literally finished 4 seconds over. We were pounding on the last paragon protector when time ran out.

Then the leader said he wanted to start a numina. Ah, I needed that on my newest scrapper for task force commander! Again we set for an hour, and when we finished we noticed (only after the fact) that we'd gone over the limit by a full 37 seconds.

The leader announced he was doing Citadel next. I considered joining, but really, three task forces in a row? I needed to take a break. I'm not some crazy person who does nothing but sit at the computer running task force after task force... right?

A few hours later I logged back in. A SG mate was joining a run at the new Positron part 1. I'd done it once already, it's fun, so I joined. We finished that in a bit over an hour.

I announced to my SG that I'd only done three task forces so far that day. ^_^ And one said, "Then you want to join my Synapse next!" Um... sure! This took longer of course, the usual 2 hours or so, though I didn't really keep track. I made jokes about how crazy I was, running four task forces in one day.

He immediately said he was going to run a Sister Psyche. Well, it was only half past 9 PM my time, what could it hurt? Five task forces in one day, sure! Other people have done such things, why not me?

By the time we finished this, it was just after Midnight. But just as we started the last mission, one of my old friends had come online. I haven't played with him (or his roommate) in quite a while. He asked if I was up for an ITF. Ah... in about 30 minutes? Sure, I guess. I mean, I know it's not a long task force, right?

Well, maybe. My friends have been into badge collecting lately, and wanted to try a Master's run. At 1 AM Pacific time, with a mostly PuG team, including some who had been out of the game six months and one who'd never been to Cimerora. Plus my friends love to charge forward zerg-style, and didn't really want to alter this significantly for the Master's run. They (and I) have really well IO-tunes, but I had no idea about the rest of the team. I assumed the whole Master's idea would be stillborn, but the team played well and we nearly made it all the way through the 2nd mission before we ran into too much aggro and two people died.

More importantly, however, we couldn't teleport people to the end of maps, so we had to slog up the hill old-school style in the third and fourth missions. Not the speed run I'd been thinking of when I said "Yes, I'll join my sixth task force of the day!" We finished at 3 AM, and I was ready to fall asleep. (It had taken quite a while for us to get a full team to start.)

Anyway... six task forces on six different toons. I've never done that before, and I doubt I ever will again. I had a fun day though, and it probably counts as a fine celebration of six years in CoH, don'tcha think? ^_^