What drew you to CoX?

Being in a game in which i felt like that i was being the hero and not a famous more well known heroes sidekick.

Always loved the superhero genre, grew up reading comics and in between playing CSS, Quake and NoX, I found myself playing this new fangled Freedom Force game and found my new obsession. Heard about City from the Freedom Force boards and when I loaded up in 2004...well I ain't looked back since.

I knew about COX since it started here in Brazil,but I wont remember the year.The problem is that I thought the monthly fee would be too expensive for me.Then 9 months ago I discovered that it wasn't,then I got here!

I'm a pen-and-paper gamer from long back, and a superhero gamer since first laying eyes on pen-and-paper Champions (the pre-hardback early edition). My name is listed in the playtesting credits for the 4th Edition, the "Big Blue Book."

So I was intensely interested when the first serious superhero computer game was about to be released. Well, it sank into the swamp (vaporware). But the next one was exciting! It, too, sank into the swamp. The next one burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stood! No it didn't. Game after game failed to materialize -- the famous "curse of the superhero game." Probably the bitterest disappointment was when the X-Com series superhero modification failed -- the code was already all written and the game was supposedly on the brink of release when it too burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp.

When COH came out I didn't have a computer that could run it, but within a year or so, I did. My attitude therefore is not "oh look at this!" or "wow, superheroes," so much as it is "It's about time."

We had just finished up a very successful GURPS Superhero game when COH was released. It looked awesome but there was no way I was going to pay to play so I didn't get it. My son did however and watching him play when I visited him (he was in college at the time) made me very envious.

Fast-forward several years... I've been playing NWN online for a long time. The main friend I'd been playing with and I were having trouble coming up with yet another set of characters and getting kind of bored of it. Without talking to her, I start browsing through the various MMO options. I didn't really like what I saw for two reasons: 1) I couldn't customize my characters (our NWN server had free crafting and I was hooked on custom looks) and 2) I hate PvP and those games almost required it.

I then stumbled across COH... I remember being surprised that it was still around. But there were my two big hangups resolved plus that old yearning from watching my son played also returned. I finally decided "what the heck" and downloaded the trial. "I'll just run the trial and go back to NWN..."

While I'm doing the download I get an AIM message from my friend asking what I'm doing and I tell her. Next thing I know she's downloading the trial too.

Next I e-mail my son and tell him what I'm doing and he enthusiastically re-subs to join us and show us the ropes and such.

The costume maker hooked us both. The game was fast and fun and 3-dimensional. Flying was grand! We started wavering on our "play the trial and then return to NWN" promise.

Then one day we are in Perez Park at 8th level trying to fight Circle of Thorns. We are on the brink of death when some fire tank/scrapper plops down in the middle of our fight. Everything dies and the hero jumps away before I even know what happened. I knew then that I WANTED to be a hero like that!

I upgraded to a full subscription the next day and so did my friend. Our spouses and many of our friends have joined us since then.

I had never played an MMO but was interested with the announcement of Star Wars Galaxies.

My brother was playing EverQuest and told me I should get to know the basics of an MMO before SWG was out so he got me into EQ.

Then in November 2003 he told me about City's video on the website and I was interested in checking it out.

When City came out in May 2004 I picked it up and was hooked and cancelled my sub to EQ a few weeks later. When I tried SWG on a free trial it was lacking so many things I enjoyed in City I never subbed to it.

There I was, walking through the local Wal-Mart Electronics section.

When what to my suprise, I see a box titled City of Heroes.

I had played an MMO before. Final Fantasy XI. So, pay to play wasn't new to me. And this! This! It was a superhero game! I had to give it a try! I mean, you're a superhero! And I was just imagined myself making what would be considered a Dual Pistols/Willpower nanotech infused superhero (basically a character I created long before CoH).

Well, much to my dismay, I couldn't make such a toon (still can't >_> just saying) however, I could make a superheroes! WHOOT! I was in! This was in the beginning of January, the beginning of i3, and where the only team I could really find, was Winterlord teams!

Ended up deleting that first toon, hating the build because I didn't know what I was doing at all. And made a new one!

Been here ever sense!

A couple of friends were very much into the game. They had tried to get me to play for a while but my dislike for RPGs in general kept me away.

At the time, I had been playing mostly Starcraft/Starcraft: Broodwar (RTS) and Tribes/Tribes 2 (FPS).

My computer wasn't the greatest so I wasn't even sure I would be able to run it.

Long story short - my brother had an account and let me try it out.

4 months later I shelled out around $1,200 for a new PC and have been playing ever since.

There was another PC upgrade in the middle somewhere there.

First time I had actually upgraded a PC just for a game.

And I mean really, for ~$15/mo for basically unlimited entertainment, not a bad deal.

I've been playing since Issue5, and two accounts later, still going strong!

[ @Zombie Fryer ][ @Zombie Smasher ]
| Home Server: Virtue |

Twitter: @ZFLikesNachos Save City of Heroes (Titan Network) [Successful "The Really Hard Way" runs: 4] [Click ^]

Being able to play a superhero in a MMO is what drew me to CoX.

I have played Champions since 1982, and I have enjoyed superhero comics since I was a child. I've also been a long time MMO player. Combining those elements into one thing is a huge draw for me. I started monitoring the CoH development almost 3 years before it went live because of my interest in playing a superhero themed MMO.

- B.

I first saw this game back when I went to a cyber cafe and one guy who is a good freind of mine and the Janitor at my high school, was playing the game and I wondered what it was. I got to try someone elses trial account to play the game and I was sold on it. Soon enough, I got the DVD version of COH for Christmas and made my account the day after. I have never let my account lapse and I plan to keep it that way.

I actually can't remember what exactly got me to look at City of Heroes, but I do have that old launch trailer on my hard drive, so probably that. I then ordered it from the US, since the game wasn't out in Europe at the time. I've been here since then.

Why CoH? I don't know, really, I'm not a comic book fan, really. I've read some stories, yes, but they're way too messed up for their own good. However, I'm a fan of the old DCAU animated series. Batman, Superman, and especially the Justice League series. So CoH could let me be a superhero just like those, except,you know, off-brand, of course, it'd be awesome. Turns out, it was.

I wanted to be the hero that helped other heroes. That ended up with the Defender in my signature. I had a Blaster first, but he's long deleted, and I ran into his namesake later.

Also, if I was part of NCSoft marketing, I'd keep an eye on this thread. When we customers volunteer info like this, it's good to keep notes.

Okay, I was an FPS guy for a long time.
Used to actively denigrate "rent to pwn".
Anyhoo, I was in the beta for Multiplayer BattleTech: 3025.
Before EA tanked it, it was the first game I ever even considered paying for monthly.
Cue long dry spell.
Out comes Pirates of the Caribbean Online. I responded to the Free To Play trial. I wound up having so much fun, I forked over for 6 months.

After a while it kinda palled though. The game essentially has a single AT. Pirate. So while your skills can differ, all your pirates are essentially the same.

Around 2008 I was walking through the local Frys and saw, again, City of Heroes. I'd heard good things about the game (though I was somewhat opinionated about the in-game advertising). So I picked it up and had an absolute blast.

2+ years later, I'm still putting boot to buttock.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

I was looking for something to play after I stopped running a neverwinter Nights server. It had superheroes. I had just about every Superhero RPG going. Shoe in really. Then I got on the EU beta and the rest is history.

I used to go to a Pen and Paper RPG store that also sold comics, and had a pay to play computer area. Well, I was coming in to pick up my stash of comics for the week, and I look over and a dude is playing a colorful looking game I had never heard before. I ask what he is playing. He says it a beta of City of Heroes, and he and a few others are going through the maze in Perez Park, and I just see all the "stuff" going on.

From then on I was looking forward to its release date, knowing that the computer I was using at the time, had no chance of running it. But I did have a friend whose computer could. Bought the game the first week it came out, took it over to a buds house, and ran the game.

Being a comic book fan, and getting to use super speed or flight was the highlight for me, the character creator was the best. Having that much creative control was fun.

My first kept toon was an Empathy/Rad defender that would eventually be my first 50 but sadly hardly gets touched anymore. Lanterness was my first creative name for a toon that wasn't already taken. Her name led to my in-game nick name of Lant that has lasted 6 plus years.

After the struggle of getting her to 50, I went the usual route and made two FOTM toons of Fire/Nrg blaster and Fire/Ice tank. After those two I made my big "I want to be different" toon and made a Stone/SS tank. And some how made a decent build before ED and the IO changes.

At this point, with two accounts, and over 50 50's I have done plenty in the game. Some things I have not done in so long that they are new now. For 5 years I have been a redside man. Never jumping off for more than a TF or two, but now with yellow side, I got to more a brute into Talos for the first time in years and am sort of liking things again.

The biggest break I took was for a free month trial of worlds of why..which I broke off after getting to level 14 and asking...where's my travel power...someone there laughed at me and told me when I got to Buy a mount..so..yeah..frak that noise, and back I came and stayed.

I started with a love of comics and some favorite characters, I stay cause of the people and the fun.

Some time after college, my friends were parting and going separate ways and someone suggested an MMO. Remember, this was before everything was connected to the internet. So we ran up a list of about ten MMOs and picked out favorites and ended up deciding on CoX. After a long wait, it came out and we all jumped aboard. The only one of us with any MMO experience suggested rolling up on Virtue, theorizing that the RPrs would be more accommodating to us MMO noobs.

Pretty quickly, most of them dropped the game and quit. Same time, more or less, I met some pretty awesome people on Virtue.

Been here ever since.

I had played the old marvel, dc, and palladium hero games at was looking around for more info when I stumbled upon the original CoH site. I still remember how you those with the most influence would earn statues of their characters placed throughout Paragon City, and how there was a possibility of uploading your own costume pieces (where others could see them as opposed to the current self only view).

I linked the site to another friend of mine that played EQ with me. We kept track of it for a while, but as I got into the high end raiding of EQ, I kind of got focused on it and forgot about CoH.

Well, my friend got into the original beta and told me it was fun, but he still played EQ with me and I wasn't too interested in dropping all the long hours I had put into EQ. CoH went live and he told me how much fun he was having, but I didn't get hooked. That is until I went to visit him (he lived across the country). He had two accounts for CoH already, and fired up his second account for me and I played one of his characters, a Defender with Empathy and Energy Blast. I prefer melee styled characters, but I had so much fun that upon returning home, I bought CoH and canceled my EQ sub. I've been here ever since.

My wife. She was trying to get me to play an MMO with her, but I wanted nothing to do with the fantasy genre dreck I saw her playing, which seemed to mainly involve running all over the place and beating up wildlife.

She let me make a character on her CoH account. I tooled around on "Ambivalent Man" for a while ("Hey, Ambi - are you coming to the mission?" "He hasn't decided yet!"), then got my own account and have been here ever since.

An OSX version was the catalyst for me (I read about it on a Mac-gaming web site). I'd long been fascinated by MMOs, though I could play only some of the few that had Mac clients. By the time one was released for CoH in early 2009, the game had thrived and matured into a competitive, attractive MMO with a lot of innovative features and a different vibe from the usual "Orcs & Dorks" fantasy settings. I wound up letting my WoW subscription lapse in part because CoH offered options that it couldn't match, such as player-created content and super sidekicking, or did better, such as character customization. The devs' dedication to improving and expanding the game with regular issues, as well as the superb setting for Going Rogue, suggests I'll be here for the long haul.

I grew up interested in superhero comics, when I could afford them, I used to draw my own comics when I couldn't so when I saw a game where you could create a super hero for the first time I thought "interesting...hate the cover, bugger it" and gave it a try. Didn't know it was an online game till I got home.

Oldest brother started on Everquest. He's more or less tried most of the available MMOs out there and as such, when the Internet truly came of age (as in, having an Internet connection was actually becoming common...though dial-up still reigned supreme), he influenced my other brother into FFxi. I tried that with them for a short time but decided it was lame as hell.

After that, CoH came out and I've been subscribed since, minus a month or two trying out EQ2, EVE, and AoC. Not really complicated, nothing else has succeeded at wresting my money/dedication away. Granted, I only started playing somewhat regularly again recently after another multi-month subscribed hiatus.