Obligatory "Back in the Day" Rant in Honor of i18

Level 50s would pay lower level players just for a chance to get on the Rescue Fortune Teller mission in Perez park.

You had to remember where the Enhancement Stores were. . . They were not on the map.

You learned the route from the Atlas Park Hospital to the Hollows by level 6.

Accuracy and Endurance problems plagued everyone at lower levels. Oh wait...

Ah, memories. Ok, here's a blast from the past: say you were Illusion/Radiation back at the beginning of time. Three different mechanical changes (toggle ranges, aggro limits, fear mechanics) made this combo slightly different than it is now. This could only have happened to you back then:

1. Lock a rad toggle onto a target in a large spawn.
2. While fighting, deploy Spectral Terror.
3. Watch the ST's fear blast cause a bunch of targets to flee for their lives in all directions.
4. Fail to notice one of them was a toggle anchor.
5. Notice about sixty seconds later when that runner comes back with half the map trailing behind him to on stomp you.

If you were Dark Armor or Ice Armor, you could only have one toggle shield on at a time. You were either protected against S/L damage or not, there was no stacking.

If you were on melee and an enemy started to run, you would be lucky to get a hit in on him. Even if you were right behind him, melee powers didn't fire off if they were on the move. The best you could hope for was running in front of him and praying it worked.

Fold Space.

-You unlocked Epic Archtypes once you got a character to level 50.
-Players were excited about what AE might have to offer.
-You had to run to the far end of Mercy to "Eliminate the Infected."
-Dual Pistols? Demon Summoning?! Shields?!? Someone's been posting while drunk again.
-Hazard zones had level restrictions to get in.
-Sidekicking. You're too far away from your sidekick. You're too far away from your sidekick...
-There was no Cimerora.
-You'll look like Popeye when you deliver a Knock-Out Blow and you'll like it!
-There was no Oroborous.
-There were no IOs.
-We don't need no salvage here.
-There were no day jobs.
-No Patrol XP either.
-Oh c'mon, we'll never get to alter the colors of the powers.
-Powerset Prolifer-whatnow?
-There were no Markets.
-There were no customizable weapons.
-Burke wasn't hanging out in Mercy Island.
-There was no soft-capping.
-There were no Boosters.
-Blasters used to deal more damage the closer they were to dying.
-There were no Vet powers.
-There were no VEATS.
-Villains only went up to level 40.
-Rogue Isles? What Rogues Isles?
-What are these Arenas you speak of?
-There were no "temporary" powers tied in to origins.
-PVP? Here?
-You could six slot a power with, say, accuracy and not have to think about diminishing returns.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gehnen ...stores didn't have map markers. You had to remember where to go. Of all the QoL improvements, this ranks second only to Super Side-kicking in my book

Oh man, I had forgotten how much that used to drive me crazy.

good luck D.B.B.

There used to be separate types of enhancements for Endurance Drain and Endurance Recovery . . . before they were combined as Endurance Modification.

The only way to get knockback protection for most characters was to take Super Jump and then Acrobatics. Fire Tanks and Dark Shield Scrappers were virtually REQUIRED to use the Jumping Pool for travel.

Spectral Terror used to make most of the foes run away in terror -- it was considered to be a really bad power. And each casting of Phantom Army would bring 2-5 Phantoms. Six-Slotting Hasten to make it permanent was common.

Joe Chott created everyone's favorite character builder.

Level 50 characters had nothing to do with the 2-3 Million Influence they had since they had a full set of SO's, so they would give it away to low level characters in maximum amounts of 9,999.

Hami-O's were worth about 1.5 times a standard SO.

The one thing that I recall that nobody else ever seems to bring up in these things is, "Hero X has defeated <mob name here>, but Hero Y did the most damage." You usually only saw this on teams, and they took out the second part with Issue 1, I believe. When I play a damage dealer with friends, I sometimes wish that it was still there, simply for bragging rights.

I remember when the game was so new we didn't have "Back in the Day" threads.

Fire Tanks were still overpowered and pulling dozens of mobs in Perez Park (sometimes into dumpsters to maximize their PBAoEs), and Dr. Vahzilok was a major threat because he didn't scale down to an EB.

We had teams to take out Praetorians because here was no Flashbacks system, and if you missed the first arc, you might be out of luck unless you found a kind soul to let you tag along (and no Exemping existed either). Especially since badges weren't retroactive when introduced. "How am I supposed to get the Infected badge?" You didn't that's how! (Of course, Posi threw a bone with Recluse's Victory, and then a major boon with Ouroboros, but those were years off).

I could go on and on.

Back in my day, you didn't get a warning when those Hellion scoundrels were lighting up a building in Steel Canyon or the Clockwork were building one 'o them Paladins. You either got lucky and just caught them in the act or no badges for you!

You take that Archery set for granted, but I remember when my bow was so shiny I nearly blinded myself with it!

You guys are lucky you get that fancy Jetpack. I remember when you had to Hover over that gulch in the Hollows. You had to pray that your team had Recall Friend or else!

*Streetsweeping in a team in Perez Park was a great way to make xp. (I miss this)
*When the invention system went live, streetsweeping Hellions in Perez Park was a great way to farm magic salvage for inf at earlier levels.
*Patrol Missions forced you to run around a big circle on outdoor maps and click the yellow call boxes (yes, they had a purpose!). Often one would pop an ambush AND people would broadcast about killsteaing if someone "helped" out.

What sticks in my mind the most is the memory of the SG Base's Hollows Transporter letting you off at the bottom of Grendal's Gulch....or at least I think it was Grendal's Gulch...wherever the location was, it was sucide for a lowbie without a raptor Pack

And yes, I vividly recall running back and forth from the Hospital to The Hollows

Oh, and I remember the first day of the XP smoothing. I was flabberghasted at seeing my debt just melting away. It was like Double XP weekend every day .

And I remember when buying SOs was a major expense. We had no Wentworths, or Invention Salvage, or Recipes to sell, so all the influence we had, we got from playing the game and selling our enhancement drops to the correct store.

Grin. First day WW went live, and I sold my newfangled salvage and IO recipes for the first time, I felt super RICH

Lisa-Loving this thread and all the memories it stirs up

Edit-And I just remembered how happy I was when Blasters were given the ability to use their first three powers while mezzed

Most of the posts thus far have been nostalgic and that's a good thing.

My biggest gripe with the direction that Paragon has taken it is the way it's been dumbed down constantly. I would gladly admit it was probably too tough back in I6 when I joined but now it's too easy - and whilst I'm sure I'll have people disagree I'm sure I'll have plenty that do.

It's a balance question and we shouldn't be too hard on the Devs sometimes but they just need to pay attention to the ease of progress.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I joined August 15, 2005...

And Back in my day...

-There was no Croatoa

-RWZ was the Rikti Crash Site

-Players used to be able to herd Gian Monsters into the middle of the Portal Corp lawn to wreak havoc on the innocent bystanders (Hehehehe) or to get a large group of heroes to band together and send the GM packin'.

-Having more than 2 50s was incredible

-There was no Hospital in the Hollows so if you dies you had to go to Sky or Atlas depending on what gate you used. Also, players such as myself became navigation experts to avoid have to RUN (yea, no temp jet packs back then) back to the Hollows.

-You worked your buns off to get your first million! One time someone I casually teamed with gave me 20million and I blacked out and ended up here!

-The Emailing system was largely useless and ignored. We didnt have the fancy schmancy ability to e-mail inf or other items...

-CuppaJo was still around...:/

-Energy Melee's pink pom-poms of d00m spelled instant trouble in PvP

-Blasters would drop off the highest building to get enough Defiance to blast everything to oblivion!

- "The Web of Arachnos" and "Freedom Phalanx" novels were still being discussed with promise of a third book titled "The Rikti Invasion(?)"

-People would to ask permission to grab the glowie in a mission that wasnt your own because they used to give XP.

- Arranging sidekicks to mentors so that everyone still got XP was an art.

- People actually READ THE CONTENT!!!


Thats all i can think of for now...

Back when if you wanted an enhancement from the 'Power 10' you couldn't buy them at the normal shops, you had to find a specific contact that sold your origin and you could only then buy them at vastly overinflated prices.

Back when you'd get repeatedly defeated and teamwiped doing the Respec because those damn Sky Raiders had Force field Generators and you couldn't clear one wave before the other wave arrived! I failed it 9 times before I completed it!

I remember...
When enemies didn't scale for solo players. Bosses were bosses and AVs were AVs. I gave up on a number of low-level characters because they couldn't handle the first Skulls boss you encountered in Perez Park (this was pre-Hollows, obviously).

How excited I was when I got a character to the level where he could Hover. I took him right up to the top of Atlas' globe. There were no badges, then, but it was still the obvious first move.

Toggling Unyielding Stance on and off so I could move between spawns.

Six-slotted perma-hasten and Accelerate Metabolism would get you multiple instances of Phantom Army. /sigh

Which reminds me of one of my most dubious memories of soloing my Ill/Rad -- pre-containment, pre-almost-everything-else, in order to beat Frostfire and Atta, I had to Deceive a nearby minion into killing them. It took forever and I got no xp for it. In retrospect, teaming would have been much, much less pain.

The pre-launch strategy guide (which I still have) which promised a Faultline trial that never materialized. It also lists "Fold Space" still in Gravity Control, so that might be a blast from the past for some of the longest term among us -- it had already been replaced by Singularity when I started, but maybe someone else can offer a memory. It looks to have been a Recall Teammate-type power. Very little about the guide remains accurate, but it's still interesting to flip through when these threads arise.

I wasn't around for the CoH end-of-beta, but I sure was for the CoV. Statesman's Strike was goofy fun, even though it was intensely laggy. Personal highlight was getting KO Blow one-shotted by ol' Red-White-and-Blue himself (all I said was "Very well, I shall tell you my evil plan... before I kill you," and the next thing I knew I was face down in the Mercy Island dirt).

These threads always surprise me. Not because I didn't know things were missing once (I was here with launch) but because quite often I didn't know things had changed.

Three pages of posts - a handful of mentions - but I don't feel that anyone has truly captured the horror of the old SideKick/Mentor system (maybe because SuperSideKicking is still so fresh).

But does no one remember (without throwing up a little in your mouth) seeing

"YOUR MENTOR IS GETTING OUT OF RANGE" o crap
"YOUR MENTOR IS OUT OF RANGE" faceplant!

Or the Mentor who forgot he was a Mentor and hospitaled after faceplanting, leaving you staring at +36 level mobs with a large, dusty brick in your throat?

Or SideKick Tetris in general; pairing up, finding the best match, switching up, people who simply refused to Mentor, SideKicks who wouldn't stay with their Mentor, Mentors who wouldn't stay with their SideKicks....etc. etc. omg I'm feeling a little faint.


O and:

I remember when Claws was a toggle power and we could attack specific body parts.

Too far back?