Hey Other Multi-Year Vets

I'm been playing COH since just a few days after it went live. In over six years of play, I have seen people come and go ... and a few come and leave again.

I'm still here.

For me, COX has seen me through some of the worst times in my life. When I needed a diversion or escape I could always slip into Paragon City.

But it's more than that.

The world has a very rich lore. (Those of you who have read my fanfiction can attest to my interest in that!)

This is the first game I ever played where I got to make my OWN characters ... characters who could fly and run and jump and wear whatever costume I made for them ...

This game has some GREAT Devs ... I have had occasion to PM Hero 1, Manticore, and War Witch herself, and they were all very courteous and helpful, taking the time to answer my questions.

But it's more than that, even.

The thing that's kept me in Paragon City ... the reason that I'm still here ... is the Community. The people I've teamed with. The people on the forums.

I am hard pressed to imagine that there is any MMO Community that is as friendly and welcoming as this one.

There are some great people here, and that's why I'm still here.

How about the rest of you?

My .sig says it all. -3 day headstart, still here!

Still here, even after all this time!

I knew about the game when it was first announced, but due to being in basic training at the time, I wasn't able to start at launch. (Didn't get my own computer until 2006 anyway, but I did read the forums on the occasions that I was at one)

Been here ever since.

didnt come at first, becasue i had a very bad experience with ffXI, decided to give it a shot because a guy on a forum i used to go to was raving about the customization, tried it, got hooked, got real life friends in it, and now have been here over 69 months, some times i go into lulls for a bit, but over all, still enjoy it a lot and am looking forward to what the new stuff brings. I figure at a certain point i am "invested" in the game and am very unlikely to leave, particularly with ww at the reigns, i respect and am grateful to posi for some very strong tech and qol improvements that augmented the game, i even respect and like jack, but i get a feeling that im really going to enjoy her run.

i play co, and im going to try dcou, but they aint getting rid of me easily here.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I've taken breaks every now and again, once for 3 months because I'd been fired, but yeah, thanks to the various free months I still have 6+ years in.

I'm here because I'm an RPG fiend, action RPGS especially. This is one of the best. It's certainly the best in MMOs. True story, I started this game so I'd have something to do until WoW came out. When it did I didn't even care, the same ol' fantasy just didn't have any appeal any more, and since I've never played the RTS games the lore held nothing for me either. I've tried 4 other MMOs since I started here, and not one of them held me for more than 3 months at most.

The forum community isn't why I stay around, but it certainly is why I peruse the forums. The community in-game however DOES have a hand in keeping me here, if it was a veritable asshabberdashery, like some games, I doubt I would've lasted more than a year soloing.

Yeah r_f, I was with FFXI before I played this game. The difference was as night is to day.

I didn't get my start until CoV, but other than a couple months away (my computer had exploded, so I wasn't going to pay for something I wasn't using - too bad I didn't know they were going to introduce Veteran Rewards later that year!!) I have been here since. I'll be here until the server lights go out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

It still puzzles me that this game isn't 10x more popular. The powers design is now reasonably balanced, the game has good quality of life options with much more customization potential than anything else I've seen, and the devs have done a surprising amount over the years with a shoestring budget.

Anyway, I've been here since the first day of closed beta. I still see a lot of 72 monthers around.

I'm not a six year vet, but I started playing six years ago. I've taken a few breaks because of college and money reasons.

There's just something about being "super" that kept me coming back.

I tried WoW and Guild Wars. Just... I don't feel unique in those games. That's what killed it for me. I look like everyone else. I don't care about the balance issues or the devs or any of that. I can't be me. Or Soulburn Sands. Or Defying the Curse. I can just be "another human warlock, wearing the same garbage or top end gear as everyone other warlock, human or not."

No other games community holds a candle to you guys and gals. This place is a sanctuary in a festering ocean of evil. I'm here till the company kicks us all out. And the games fun too.

My partner got the main account gifted to them, swapped them my World of Warcraft trial (which said partner re-upped) for the CoH one; it's been five years and I've never regretted it.

CoH is a very fun game, loot-lite (to a degree) and the community is great.
Wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Well here's something which is a blast from the past then:

My friend who i used to work with used to always go on about this game, saying how awesome it was and everyday saying what he acheived in it. One day then after popping in to my local game store, i saw it on the shelf and thought why not at least try it for a month. 57 months later . . . . im happy i picked it up

I've always thought of myself as a non serious gamer, but this game has become the only technical item that i have that i make an effort on Have had many great memories from playing this game, not the least meeting the most random and funniest people i know ingame!

People like rapthorn, yellow cat, LB, magma man, euro girl and abigail made the game very enjoyable and hookable for me Even though the supergroup went completely downhill, it was probs the best supergroup i had EVER been in [and only one to be honest that was enjoyable and made me want to log in purely to see whats going on].
Was pure luck what brought us all together. I was on one night in atlas on a very mad hyper mood, got invited to the sg as one of the first members and started advertising for the supergroup with a different recruitment drive every day [as we all hate the same boring generic ones you hear "hi come join ****, we're number ** in the top 100!"] and quickly got voted by fellow members of the supergroup to be in charge of events for the supergroup
While none of us were great pvpers, we all enjoyed it and once a week had a supergroup low level [think it was level 15] pvp event with the winner each week being the "champion of the supergroup" as such, regular costume competitions and regular team runs. But the thing that made it the most enjoyable? Was all of us were constantly in contact with eachother ingame, every new member got made to feel welcome and was encouraged to be active. Now by active we dont mean collect prestige, since again we strongly believed it was up to the "main members" of the supergroup to keep the base payment up, but we mean by teaming together, talking with eachother and just generally being part of a great community. It very quickly felt like a small family and one that i really wish i could try and recreate, a supergroup that is made for fun . . . . . not to rank in the prestige and such.

As time has gone on and after a huge supergroup argument errupted which made most of the main members leave on a temp basis, i made new friends such as soul storm, coolio, gabrielle thornton, jay, sophie and many more and a new era begun for me. Now again this next story happened just by chance but it became legendary in the minds of everybody who took part in it, still get PMs now about it to get it up and running again! What am i talking about? Well its . . . .

The Cruise! One night while again i was on a hyper, i decided to make a chilled out surfer character. Had sandals, shorts, backwards cap and the prestige slide to look as if he was surfing on the water, it looked great! Plus i used the power quicksand to create an effect like i was on a beach. Well anyway i was drumming in atlas one night and started chatting in local randomly about chilling out and saying to passers to come "join the cruise!!!". Some people joined and everybody started talking and having a laugh and before we knew it, we had all been talking nonstop [and i mean nonstop] for a good 6 hours!!! We were all shocked, but we had so much fun we said that "the cruise" should stop again in atlas same time tomoz. Well it did, we had MORE passers join to make it even bigger and started doing fun little events! Like getting a mini atlas band going with each of us having a role [like drummers, dancers, singers etc], screenies of all of us fishing, costume contests and just more laughs! We all turned up the same time every night for a whole week with everyday getting more and more people joining Didnt want to spoil a good thing so for about 2 months, once a week we all turned up and took over atlas! Was the first time i met some good friends that too! Random moment which turned out to be great! One time i decided to bring it back for one night to see if i could recreate the moment and yes i could!
We got a giant conga line going around atlas which i uploaded to youtube [first half of the video is frozen mind, so skip to the 2nd half!] before have a RPS game on the top of the globe!

Thats what keeps me in this game for so long. Its not the actual game which i love to pieces, but its moments like these which are completely random but turn out to be great moments! Wow i had a bit of a flashback moment rant there! sorry!

Two years ago my roommate had two friends in the beta who kept pushing him to play, but his computer was too old to run the game, so they installed it on mine and he would borrow mine to play. I was interested and made a couple characters on his account. Then bought my own account and haven't looked back.

I keep trying to convert the masses. I'm not a very successful evangelist yet.

On those who don't know why it is not more popular, three main reasons:
1. MMOs, being social, are almost a zero-sum game. Like Social networking sites. People play wow because their friends play wow. People use facebook over myspace for the same reason.
2. Superhero games are a niche. They're not as popular as the pure sci-fi, or fantasy, or even war simulators. Everyone loves a superhero movie, so I'm a bit confused why more people aren't into the genre.
3. Missing the meaningless fancy bits/shiny toys. Other games have voice acting, we have word bubbles (which I like because they are more in-character for the genre). Other games have custom maps/locations for all quests, we get semi-random not at all logical mazes. Other games have their equivalent of the "glowie" be custom created for each mission and incorporated logically into the setting. We have computer terminals standing in the hallway of an office or warehouse. Or a wall safe in a public room. Makes no logical sense. Easy to code, yes, but shiny and refined? Not so much.

Of the people who I got to try the game and then they stopped, those three reasons, (especially number 3) were the biggies why they quit. But all of them loved the character generator, loved the powers, loved the lack of grinding and loot-specific repetition, and they enjoyed the community.

Then they went back to their WoW guild, or eve-online coproration. Sigh.

When I compare, I have not found a City of supergroup that mandates a certain number of hours of hami raiding or you're kicked. Or a certain number of Purple IOs or you're kicked. Activity levels in general, like log in every month, yes. But that makes sense with the group size limitations. Gotta do something to fit in the active people. I have a lot more fun with the supergroups here. Awesome people overall.

I can't imagine what will take me away other than the game ending.

Hey! I'm still here, and haven't missed a monthly payment since joining!


While it used to be more about the powers and stuff, I think now it's more about the folks in-game that I know. Plus, I recently got a new computer, so some stuff is new all over again.

I have no plans on going anywhere until the force me out at gunpoint.

This game allows me to bring characters to life that I don't have the time to write about, and is probably the closest I will ever come to my childhood dream of writing comic books.

Since I started playing, I met a wonderful woman on Pinnacle, and my entire life changed.

I went from living my parent's basement, unemployed, with a severe case of depression and borderline alcoholism ------ to being happily married, owning my own home, gainfully employed in a position that provides benefits, and expecting my first child in early October.

All that happened in 3 short years, and none of it would have happened without this game. So in a very real way, I have this game to thank for the fact that I'm still alive, relatively sane, and not in prison.

A large part of why I stuck around, aside from the above factors, is the community here. In my time here I've forged some friendships with people that I have since come to consider real friends (not just people I game with online). When I've been bummed out or stressed about something I'd log in on my main to thrash some stuff, and someone in PinnBadges would make me crack a smile and shrug off my bad mood.

Some of the best things to ever happen to me were because I decided to waste my time playing video games

Been here since the 2nd to last wave in CoH's beta. It's been an awesome time/game, that's for sure

I know I've played other MMOs before this one and after playing WoW and then CoH...I've said it before but I'll say it again....I don't think I'll ever play another fantasy-based MMO again. They're all the same and just...yeah....bland to me.

As Samuel_Tow mentioned...I'll touch on again. I saw CoH's User Interface and fell in love with it. You mean I can move stuff around and customize it to the way I like it without installing 3rd party apps or know how to program in XML (ie. WoW)?!?! Sign me up! And this is before all the lovely things like chat tabs/global channels and other various UI improvements over the course of 6 years that have been put in the game

The thing that threw me off at the very beginning was the health/endurance bars were on the top-right and not on the top-left like most other MMOs. But...now I'm used to it

::: looks at reg date :::

Yeah, I keep boomeranging back to Paragon City.

You magnificent bastards.

I just love the game and i'm so attached to me toons after all these years that moving onto another game would just be silly. I love CoX :X

Been here since late I6 and I'll be here when they close the doors. Only break I've taken was the six months I had a broken computer and even then I kept my account up for a few of those (took longer than I figured to get reconnected...I'm poor ).

I knew a week or two in this was the game for me. I'm not a gamer, I'm a super-hero geek! Finding the Legion of Valor and a bunch of new friends a few months later cemented that quite firmly. I tried "that other game" in Beta and only found it full of Jack's flaws that I was glad went away when he did. I have absolutely no interest in DCUO or MUO. I wanted a new world to play in, not deal with the same-old same-old. Here I can make my own stuff, with my own background that doesn't have 70 years worth of lore to wonder if I'm contradicting. I treat Paragon like it's my own personal Astro City.

So, in short, it's the game itself and the people I've met that keep me coming back for more.

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

Like many of you I have tried other games but it's all been pale compared to this brilliant game. I have been on breaks but I always drift back. Nigh on six years and I still feel the stress of everyday life wash right out when I hear the familiar CoX soundtrack.

//Jack

Been here since CoH beta. 6+ years non-stop.

All of my real-life friends that used to play....gone.
All of the people in my SG (25-30 or so) that used to play.....gone.

I don't socialize a lot so the fact that I even made friends in the game in the early days is nothing short of a minor miracle.

But I'm still here & have no intention of ever leaving (even if it means I play solo most of the time). I've played at least a dozen other MMOs over the years but CoH was the first I ever played & is currently the only one I'm subbed to.

I look back to 2004 & can't believe this is the same game. Well, I guess it isn't huh? The amount of changes & improvements they've done over the years have been incredible.

Plus the community is fantastic (especially compared to the ones for other MMOs). From my experience, the maturity level in the CoH community is much higher than most other MMOs. Sure, even here you're still going to have an occasional d-bag show up but they are few & far between.

The game really does deserve to be more popular than it is.

So yeah, I'll be here until they cut the power.

Been here since Original Beta, less one 18 month break around I7-I8 timeframe.

I enjoy the comic book Hero/Villain concept, the story lines, and I also enjoy
the gameplay and the uniqueness of playstyle that each AT has...

I like the sheer number of different things I can do with any particular toon
to while away the evening hours.

Those things keep me playing the game, despite the head-scratching I do
whenever the devs release another piece of poorly considered, or outright buggy
code... So far, the good stuff outweighs the goofy stuff (though sometimes
I wonder, but that's the career programmer in me wondering "wtf?").

I also enjoy the forums, and the sheer volume of helpful information I've read
from the friendly players in our community.


Regards,
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