5 Years later...

October 10th, 2005. That was the day I first stepped foot into Paragon City. How I got there is sort of a funny story, (at least to me.)

June 2004 I moved out of my parent's house for the first time into a house with 3 of my friends, all of whom were gamers. I had a good chunk of money saved up and moving out into a bachelor pad, I spent a good deal of money on new games, a new XBox etc.

While I was going on my shopping spree I decided I wanted to try an MMO. Being the Star Wars nut that I was looking to by the Star Wars MMO. However when I got to the store, the newly released CoH box caught my eye. I picked it up, glanced it over and the clerk at the store started telling me about it.

Everything about it hit me right, the box, the art, the screen shots on the back, the concept. The idea of building my own Super Hero and running around with other people's super heros? It was fantastic. But I was set on that Star Wars MMO and so I got it.

I was bored with it in 2 weeks , gave up on MMOs. But some things are meant to be.

A year and a few months later I was settled into a new apartment and I was in a game store and a Pre-order box caught my Eye. City of Villains! I was instantly intrigued and while City of Heroes had me within seconds of changing my mind and buying it instead of that other game, the idea of making my own villain was too much to pass up!

Still I wanted to make sure I'd like the game so I went home and downloaded CoH from Direct2 Drive. I figured I'd spend the 30 dollars, see if I liked it then I would get CoV if I did.

It was a nice, gray, rainy late afternoon and I remember in the install screens, loving the art that popped up with the Archetypes on it. Blaster, Scrapper, Tanker. It was so colorful and heroic looking, I was enamored before it was installed.

At the main menu, that heroic music, the blue back ground, it drew me in and in moments I was going nuts on the costume creator. Then I made my first character. A stone\Mace Tanker. I headed into the tutorial and even then I was blown away. So much better than that other game. I could leap chain link fences in a single bound, I could walk right up to Infected and bash them with my mace. No clunky menus in the game, everything was simple and easy to navigate. No steep learning curve, I was already fighting baddies!

The Stone tanker didn't last long. I deleted him after the tutorial. I wasn't crazy about the look and feel of it, but I had seemingly endless things to try. All the different ATs and primary and secondary powers options, I wanted to try them all!

My next character was an assault rifle blaster. I figured why not have some bad *** blonde chick with a big gun? I was pretty much still playing around with things at that point, not knowing that anything I did would stick. I was level 6, running around Galaxy city shooting stuff eagerly working towards my next power pick and I saw it, some one was FLYING through the zone! I've always wanted to fly, and then and there, 30 minutes into the game I was hooked. The

That blaster has become my Main character. 5 years later she has 929 badges and counting. She's run every TF in the game except the Mender Silos TF. She has fought every GM, run all the event missions and I've loved every minute of playing her and building her up with Orange and purple Sets. Eagerly awaiting incarnate content for her!

5 Years later, billions in influence earned and spent, 12 50s, 30 alts, countless costumes, 14 issues and counting, 2 hero cons and I just got my 60 month vet badge the other day.

The Irony of it all? I got the game to see if I'd like it enough to get City of Villains when it released. I got City of Villains the first day it was out, but I never liked redside as much as blueside. I've always found that funny since I bought the game to make my own villain. But I have a number of them too.

So it's been a hell of a ride and though I've taken my breaks from the game and the forum I've kept my account active for the most part, I never liked the idea of not being able to sign in the moment I decide to play. I've been here since issue 5 and the way the game has grown has boggled my mind. My girlfriend of 4 years now plays with me on a semi regular basis with her own account.

I remember the first week I played I had so many questions. It took me a few days to figure out what LFT meant, but one of the things I was always impressed about was the other players in this game. When I was first learning every little while I'd put some question in broadcast and get 20 answers back giving me all the info I'd need. Any time I was on a team everyone was helpful and welcoming and with very few people causing problems. And all the super hero puns! So much fun. That's never changed, even now that I'm more Jaded and a bit of a "know it all" (Stubbornly so at times.) I find people are still friendly, helpful and it's a great bunch, here on the forums and in the game. It's been a ton of fun and I'm hoping for 5 more years!

Seriously, thank you Players, Forumites and especially to the Development and OCR teams, it's been a great time playing this game. What a hobby\past time to have, and what a great community to share it with!

Forgive the long rambling nature of this post, I'm writing it kind of late and just sort of reminiscing and looking back on it all.

Anywho, that's my story, anyone else got fun stories to share about how they got into this game and what got them hooked?

I thought this was going to be a leaving the game thread, lol. Don't scare people like that.

My story is simple. I'm a massive comic fan and read about this new MMO on one of the sites I went to. I thought the only MMO ever was Everquest and had never tried it or an MMO ever, but the thought of being whatever superhero I wanted was perfect. So I applied to beta, got in, and made my first character Utopia, which is still my main. Been here ever since and will stay here until they drag my corpse out.

I was reading a website that showed upcoming game releases. One of these was City of Heroes and since I could see it was going live in the next few days I decided to try it out.

On the day game began, I sign on for the first time and went through the tutorial. I was on a Fire/Fire blaster Infernus Hades (his first incarnation). I entered the Atlas map and was astounded. Before me were hundreds of heroes, jumping, flying and zipping around.

I joined a team and we went into a few missions smashing mainly Hellions. I got up to level 7 and took off to Perez Park and learned the joys of Hydra smashing! I leveled up to 14, Burning Hydras up in the lake.

Then I joined an SG with a like minded person Zorz. We founded Sin on Champion and became a tight group of friends. In those days an entire SG would head to Founders Falls and 25-30 of us would all attack a single group. Without the Purple Patch we could in time - defeat them. A horde of 10-20 level players attacking single groups of 39's would give you a level per foe you defeated!

My blaster soon became a celebrity. He was either the first or one of the first Fire/Fire blasters to 40 (when it was the level cap) on Champion. When I logged in I would be swamped with invites as at that time very few mez attacks were in the game. Fire/Fire was death incarnate and I could destroy entire groups in an instant with my nuke or melt entire MISSIONS in a herd in 10-15 seconds.

Since then I have seen mistakes and mis-steps by the game, but in the end thru it all I could see it was a labor of love for those who wanted us to be Heroes and Villains and powerful beyond mortal ability.

To copy Batty from Blade Runner:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Rikti attack ships firing on Paragon off the shoulder of Atlas. I've watched Flaming Giant Pumpkins glitter in the dark near the Croatoa gate. Watched the sun go down in Talos as the Banished Pantheon rise in the night and magic fills the dark. All those moments found by others in time.... like heroes in the magazines.... time to play and change the world.

I have stood in Terra Volta back to back with a fellow Fire tank - our last hope for salvation as we 2 surrounded by Freakshow and being fed inspirations by the other 6 defeated players found a way to survive and with our last dying breath save the Reactor from exploding.

I have fought the Hydras with a team of 8 as all were dead except my empathy defender and a tank the persons first character found what it was like to be heroic on her first day in Paragon at level 8 as the rest of the team slowly dies and this young lady was healed by me until I fell and she won by a whisker and the entire team cheered her for her determination to win!

I have seen so much heroism and villany and always, always it was epic and fun. Over 6 years and I still look forward to playing, thanks to you all both in the game and making the game.

I have a clear and distinct memory from August 2006 where someone on the old forums was complaining about the frequent Friday/Saturday night server crashes that were happening back then, and said "I can guarantee you this game will not be here in two years".

I always remember that when my SG reaches another anniversary

Me and a pair of pals had been running the same PnP Champions campaign for 15 years, since the time when we were kids. We were living across the country from each other, but would get together a few times a year and game. We were hoping that when CoH came out, we could change some of our trips into cheaper online excursions. So we remade in CoH dozens of characters we had made over the years and played.

That's what brought me in.

I actually have a pretty good story. in 2004 just after the launch of the game, my dad convinced me to make a character which was a lot of fun and I played a bit in Perez with some teams. I thought the gameplay was ok and all, but I hated how long it took to get around. I put it down and was prepared to never come back...

Then my dad said: "if you want to get around faster, why didn't you slot more run into sprint?"

I said "You can DO that!?"

Now clearly I don't slot sprint any more, but at the time, I felt like I had figured out the secrets of the universe! And that was way before I learned that you could get travel powers.

I'm still pretty embarassed that after 14 levels, I dropped on my first characters because I wanted to slot them differently with different powers. It was much later that I learned what a "respec" was.

It was the spring of 2004, I was at Target to pick up a movie. As I walked by the PC game isle, I noticed this game's box art that looked so much like a comic book that I had to stop and take a look. I was a huge Marvel fan then (not so much now) so it was sort of a knee-jerk reaction for me.

Since I was in a hurry, I didn't have enough time to take a closer look and mull over my purchase decision, so I didn't buy the game at then.

A few months later, now in the middle of the summer, I was at Target to get some back-to-school stuff. In walking past that same isle, I saw COH's bright blue box again and stopped to take another look. Since I wasn't being hurried by family members, I was able to take my time and drool over the screenshots and descriptions on the back. As a result, I ended up buying the game.

Since COH was my very first MMO, my first time creating a character and playing the game was so exciting. My first character was an Elec/Elec Blaster on Pinnacle named Tangerine Shock. I spent her first few levels just exploring and being in awe of the whole MMO-ness of everything. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that those brightly colored heroes jumping and flying around me were people too.

For my first gaming experience, I set out exploring Atlas Park with my little brother as a backseat gamer (it was his first MMO too). I zapped a few Hellions and some clockwork. I got my first door mission and was en route to it, taking my time with the scenic route. I hopped over a fence and encountered for the very first time, the Vahzilok! My reaction (and my brother's reaction) was an utter freak out (ZOMG ZOMBIES!) as the zombies were puking on me and the Morticians were pew pewing at me with their darts. We were screaming out loud as I was running away from the zombies and their homing-puke-missles. We were screaming so loudly that my older brother came in to check on us. LOL

It was some adrenaline-pumping excitement in my very first MMO and I wanted more! Too bad the DoTs from the zombie puke landed me my first trip to the hospital.

Nowadays, when I fight the Vahz, sometimes I think back to that very moment and have myself a chuckle.

Good times.

I was thoroughly excited about the game when I first heard about it. The first opportunity I had I ran to my local game store and, with breathless anticipation, approached the man behind the counter.

"Excuse me, sir," I said with gleaming eyes. "But this game City of Heroes, can it be played on its own without other players or do you HAVE to go online and deal with actual people instead of only NPCs?"

The clerk gives me the ol' gimlet gaze and snorts at my ignorance. "Nah, it's an MMORPG... you gotta play with others."

Oh.

So, my heart broken, I ignored the game when it first came out. Back then I was a loner and not at all interested in playing with others. No one had bothered to explain to me that CoH was just about the ONLY MMORPG out there where you could solo almost as well as you could team. I would occassionally gaze wistfully at the game box on the shelves, wishing hopelessly for a new off-line version, but that was all.

Then, around Issue 10, one of my friends tried it and insisted I at least give it a shot. She had a free trial membership code I could use.

I tried it.... grudgingly... and the first efforts in the tutorial were not particularly glorious. I was used to console games and using the keyboard and mouse seemed awkward. But then....

But then...

The game is like a friendly fungus... it grows on you. Now, of course, I'm addicted. And, ironically enough, the game that I originally refused to play because of the enforced-community aspects has one of the best on-line communities out there. I've gone from not wanting to play with others to participating (perhaps a bit TOO much) in the game's forums.

I suspect subliminal in-game hypnotism.

I have always been a huge comics/superhero fan, and always wanted to try this game. But I couldn't justify the idea of paying a monthly fee on top of paying for the box. But November of 2004 I bought DVD collectors version of COH, hoping that I could, if nothing else, tinker with the character creator. Unfortunately I couldn't run the game. At first I assumed my computer wasn't able to handle it. It was later I discovered I just needed to update my drivers.

10 months later, and a week before the birth of my youngest son I thought this would be a great time to give this thing a try. I figured I'd commit to maybe a month or two financially, and take advantage of the time off from work. I remember my anticipation building up as the progress bar advanced during the install, each screen shot adding to the excitement. My first character (which is still in existence, and finally hit 50 a few months ago) was an NRG/NRG blaster. I slapped the guy together, having no clue as to what I was really doing. It was sad when I discovered that his name was the same as my account name. But when he finally loaded into Atlas Park, I was blown away.

My fondest memories are of the amazement that I felt knowing all those other characters zipping around were actual people, from other states, and other countries, and all in my computer. I loved the majestic music in Atlas Park. I had the prestige power slide, and being new to the game it was fun that so many people kept asking me where I got it. It took we a week to realize how I could jump under the Atlas Statue by hitting the space bar (I don't like reading instruction books).

And here I am, also 5 years committed, and still loving every minute of it. I suffer from a bad case of Wife Agro, Badge Fever, and Altitis. My then 13 year old son played around on my account, and 3 months later, for X-mas, received his own account. My now 5 year old son, too, enjoys the game and is constantly bugging me to play. Some day I'll have to get him his own account.

Me and comics: I never read superhero comics growing up. I really didn't read any comics. But when I was in high school, a friend named Greg Wadsworth self-published his own comic called Ismet, somewhat inspired by Cerebus I think. He published seven issues, and I read it of course, and I liked it. And I thought, "I wonder if there's anything else in comics worth reading?"

Initially this only lead me to becoming a big fan of Elfquest, and later I followed Cerebus as well. But after I graduated from high school I moved to a new town. I was a D&D gamer, but the group of friends I met in my new town played a Superhero RPG that one of them had created himself. (He wasn't fond of the couple of hero rpgs on the market at the time). I wasn't into superheroes, but I liked gaming so I wound up playing heroes quite a bit over the next few years, and even getting into hero comics a bit, although I gravitated more to the alternative/independent titles like Grimjack, Nexus, Badger.

When CoH was coming out, I was only mildly interested in it. I'd tried several online games by that point, but after several years in EQ I hadn't found one that really grabbed me. At the time I was actually playing Toontown, lol. I had made some good friends in the game; there were any number of adults that played the game, usually people who had kids which is how they'd discovered the game to start with. A bunch of them were kind of bored of it and for some reason latched onto City of Heroes as the cool new thing they wanted to do. Mostly these people weren't even the people in the game I considered close friends, but I kind of knew them, and when the game came out I picked it up that week.

I played for a bit over a year. I was really addicted, but about the time that CoV was ready to come out, I stopped. At the time I was convinced that I'd shaken off my MMO habit forever, and that I'd never go back. But more than a year later a friend in SL tried talking me into coming back. I said no, but then I got curious and installed the game again....

Dunno if that was the best or worst decision I ever made. My friend stopped playing almost immediately after that, but I'm still here!

3-3 1/2 yrs now and i joined from Command and conquer generals zero hour. and thought O.o superhero/villain game..score..hmmm MMo pay for...lets try....Score..still here. best game ive played.

Well my story. It was june of 2005, I was thinking about dipping my toe into a MMO when I got a trial from a magazine. I tried it, and with in about 2 weeks after that (it was a 21 day trial) I wound up buying and except for a few brief periods when I was short on money, I'm still here.

and regarding the Addiction comment. Considering the post that inspired that was steelclaw, I presumed it was a joke.

My COX/GR experience is short but has been great!

Only into my 3rd month... But have a 50 now and have been enjoying the game very much. Especially AE even if people don't play arcs anymore. They're still fun to make.

Going Rogue did a good job of advertising. Seemed everywhere I went I kept seeing the ads. I'd known COH had been around for years but was too busy with other MMORPG's to give it a chance. GR came out at just the right time for me.

So I'm as green as Kermit but plan on staying a long time.

You know, I've been trying to recall when or how I first heard of this game and I have no earthly idea. What I *do* remember quite clearly is getting my invitation to the closed beta for the second wave, right around my birthday in early March of '04. After being blown away by the character creator and finishing the tutorial, I entered Atlas Park and the very first thing I saw was a policeman running by me with his arms flailing. I thought, "This town needs a hero like me."

My friend told me all about coh when he saw his friend playing it in England and it sounded pretty good to me but I didn't look for it but then in late 2005 I saw the cov box in the store and grabbed it. So I started red side and when I got around to going blue side in 07 I didn't like it.

I played a lot of Neverwinter Nights. I liked connecting to player-run servers and meeting new people. I also became a fangirl of Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne, who made several great modules for the game, and started following his Livejournal.

Twoflower had been a City of Heroes player since beta and often posted about his characters and the many adventures of his group of players, including screenshots of the game. It intrigued me enough to give the game a try, and I've been a part of DFB Crew ever since.

First time I saw anything CoH related was in a gaming magazine waaaay back in the start of '04 about a month or so before the game went live. I didn't really pay much attention to the article about the game as I was much more interested in all the pictures. In fact, I can clearly remember seeing a screencap of a character with the giant forearm-encasing Tech Gloves and thinking to myself "Those look awesome. I need to get this game and use those."

As time went by, I actually ended up setting my intrest in City of Heroes aside for a while, until seeing it on a shelf while out shopping. My thoughts of longing rekindled, I picked up the game, brought it home, and made my account. That was a week after CoH went live. I've kept my account up and running since then, and I've enjoyed every minute of it.

Ah, fond memories.

I grew up as a kid in the seventies constantly addicted to superhero comics; I have many memories of buying voluminous black and white reprints (long before collected volumes or even regular publications in Australia) of Superman and Batman and the Justice League. It was in my blood and continued well into the 80's.

Fast forward to the 2000's, and like many other folk, I got put on to that behemoth called Globe of Massive combatcraft. But after only six months, I got to level 35, and have a distinct memory of having killed a batch of creatures only to discover I had to kill yet more of them...in the exact same area.

The burnout was high, but lo and behold as I was walking into an EBGames store in late 2005, there was a boxed copy of City of Villains, replete with Heroclix. A superhero MMO? No way, I thought.

Naturally enough, I made a villain...the game being called City of Villains, after all. The ninja I made remains my highest levelled redside character. And then I made a classic Superstrength/Invulnerability tank, as something of a homage to the Incredible Hulk. That remains a character who I have constantly revised the look of over the last 51 months as new costume parts and designs came out. With the ability to save costumes now, I've discovered I have a passion for costume designing and getting things just so.

I've been with a total of three SG's in that period, the third ironically being a Golden Age-themed hero group, coming a neat circle back to where I started with reading comics. Even though the character I made for the group has turned out to be more of a Spider-Man than a Batman or Superman, the character is distinctly mine, something I can honestly say I've had on no game before or since. That's something I think this game can have as its testament, that you have a sense of investment and originality like few others. That how you look as your character can be so fundamentally unique that in turn your experiences feel the same when you play them.

I think Going Rogue solidified that experience, because outside of tabletop gaming, it's a rare online game that gets you to stop and think about your own individual experience. Kudos to Paragon Studios for that.

And I intend to stay on, even if I want some of the usual wishlist request like destructable environments and objects, fingers and the game to look like some PS3 masterpiece.

It's good enough to get me do that.


S.

My story is pretty simple.

I don't read comics, I don't particularly like comics, or most MMOs, for that matter. I ignored CoH for the most part, even CoV.

But one day, shortly after CoV was released, a friend of mine who played CoH/V quite a bit asked me to try it and had a free trial code for CoV.

I figured why not and gave it a shot. Was hooked after I tried the Mastermind AT, love classes like that in games. And I've been playin CoV/H off and on for years. Though I like Red side alot more than blue (primarily because MMs weren't available blue side >_>) I eventually did make a good assortment of ATs on both sides.

The game's fun, what can I say?