3+ Year Veterans: Why do you stay?

I've been playing it kind of casually, so I still have a lot of content left to try.

Also, I want to know where the story goes.

For the first year and a half or so of playing (I'd be due up for my 42 month badge next month) it was because the game was still new to me - things I hadn't done, powersets I hadn't played, so on. The next two years were mostly because of the people, but now that most of those are gone...

I'm a 72 month vet. I joined up in May of 2004 and I've taken a few breaks here and there. What keeps bringing me back?

1) There's no other game out there like this. I tried out the "competition" a while back and it never clicked the way this game has.

2) The community. It bears repeating.

69 Months. I had to take break after ED. I didn't take ED very well at all. I do 1 character with every anniversery badge.

I doubt I will leave again. I really enjoy different parts of the game. I'm not casual, but I am not a hard core player either, and yet I have been able to do everything in the game that I want to do. I can't do that in some other titles that I won't name.

EDIT: I also agree that community has a big thing to do with it. I usually solo, mainly do to me being unable to talk to people. But I have never really had a bad experience with anyone playing this game. I can't say that about some of those other titles out there.

I'm a 54+ vet and I just enjoy the game. I love my comics so this brings them to semi-life for me. And I've met some good people during my time playing here.

1. Super Heroes.
2. The community in CoH is the best I've had the pleasure of joining.
3. Super Heroes.
4. Character customization is light years ahead of every other game out there.
5. Super Heroes.
6. Gameplay is fantastic. You can get a "flow" going in CoH that's hard to match with other games out there.
7. Did I mention Super Heroes?

I bought this game when City of Villains came out... I learned a lot about people... Made friends... Spend hours in creative work on bases, costumes and MA arcs...

I am able to fight evil.. or to be evil myself..

It gives me a sense of accomplicement... It brought me in contact with many nice people... Even the ones I don't agree with... (yes... I too travel from the Netherlands to the UK just to meet up with people I play with)... The community is like one big family... And it is still fun ever time I log in.

I will be here for a long time still...

I've been here for a long time. The reasons why I'm here are many and varied, but instead of writing a multi-page essay to explain them, I'll make a bulleted list.

*It's cheap. It may cost as much as a AAA title every three months, but I have yet to see a AAA title which could hold me for three weeks, let alone three months, and of those I've seen, like, three.

*It's creatively stimulating. I've written more fiction as a result of inspiration from this game than I've had dreams in 26 years. The game, as it is designed, stimulates one's imagination by not just giving freedom, but also by encouraging it.

*It's customizable. Almost every other game I play, I'm given a choice from a few developer-made characters. They may be loosely designed, such as "fighter" or "engineer" or such, but they're still other people's. Here, I can make my own characters with my own look, with my own stories and then eventually run away with them in my own world.

*It's fun. "The competition" got as far as mimicking the look, but not the feel of City of Heroes. It's a damn fun game that I can take pleasure in even when I'm completely burned out, because it's a system that's much easier to keep track of than practically any other. The fights are fun, I get to take on hordes of enemies and beat them all up with style.

*It looks good. For a ten-year-old engine (the first working trailer I saw was 2001), City of Heroes looks pretty damn good. It looks even better because my designs for characters are quite obviously superior to everybody else's, and here I get to look at my own designs all the time.

*Its community is not full of ******** like so many others. We all have our bad days and our bad scrapes, but at the end of the day, this is one of the few general communities I've seen where you don't have to watch your back the entire time.

*It's not exactly like every other MMO ever made since 1999 but with a different skin, unlike every other MMO ever made since 1999. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I'm here for the community, since I work such strange hours and have a newborn son at home, I don't have much of a social life these days. The community helps me feel like I'm not completely isolated from the world.

I'm coming up on my 60 month badge later this month, and if anyone had told me I'd have paid monthly to play a game for 5 years I'd have called them a damn liar. But I have.

I met my wife while playing, and in a way it's similar to returning to the place we met every time I log in (I'm kinda sentimental sometimes).

If not for this game, I wouldn't have married the most wonderful woman in the world, my son would not exist, I wouldn't own my own home, I wouldn't have a steady job. In all likelyhood, if it weren't for this game I would probably be an alcoholic living in my parents basement with all kinds of mental and emotional problems. I can't say for sure, because my life didn't go down that path, but it's entirely possible City of Heroes saved my life. All because I happened to log in on a particular day, and met a particular person.

That's why I'm still here.

I find it to be a good entertainment value. For $15 a month, I could maybe see one or two new movies, maybe stretch that to 4 matinees if I have a weekday off. I could buy other games, but those don't offer the same longevity. My roommate drops $40-$60 on a new console game every month. I could buy a book or two, but have access to the public library. I suppose that only answers how I justify the subscription.

Why do I keep coming back? Hmm... for one I really like the freedom in creating characters here. The setting is fairly loose and allows a lot of different ideas to incorporated into it as opposed to more specific sci-fi or fantasy games. The costume creator is great and power customization is quickly catching up. I like the gameplay, specifically the Control powersets, which I find most other games tend to skimp on or make secondary to other roles. I haven't even explored all the different AT's yet, let alone powersets.

Ultimately though it goes back to how much I loved comics when I was younger. It's just fun to be part of that world.

Because its MY game.

I have been playing since the first day the game went live and I play MY characters with MY powers and I play it MY way.

In most games the developers make you play it their way. They know what type of play they want and you are without options. In City of Heroes I do it my way. If I want to I can even create my OWN world in the AE and never enter the city except to level up and buy enhancements.

This flexibility should be rewarded. So I stay and have fun, if it stops being fun and I stop having ideas for a new character - I will move on. But I just started a new Earth/Radiation controller - The Atomic Aardvark and so far he amuses me and is fun!

1. Same to what all of you said.

2. This is important to me guys, we go at it on these forums at times, but we are truly a great net family. I want to thank all of you.

3. Are you kidding, I pay monthly for 7 years off, and on, I have been desperately looking for the perfect game. Blasted game, if coh is the thing I keep coming back to through all my rants n searching.

4. Help me I can't leave. lol

• I like the gameplay.
• I tend to like the graphics.
• I am attached to my favorite characters, which I attribute to the combination of power, appearance and description flexibility we are given.
• I have in-game friends I like to chat with (and play with, but I enjoy soloing a lot)
• I like to solo a lot, and you can do so here, and then some.
• There's a lot of variety in powersets, leading to (for me) a lot of replay opportunities.

I play CoX because I actually imagine myself as my character. Everytime I watch a movie and it has someone superpowered in it I always think if I can make a toon with similiar powers or not. I really like this game, it's very diversive (I think that is what I am thinking abouth, hope it's right) and I can't get bored with it.

Combat system. While it has lots of holes and things I would like to see changed. I love the dynamicism of the combat.

I just hit the 51 Month badge myself.
I have a serious Altitius case with no natural 50s (I have a couple of bumped ones on test).
I have most of the Booster/Packs and wrangled my GF in a couple of months after I started. For what limited income I have, CoX is my entertainment budget for now.

Why do I stay?

Let's see...

• Decent and fun gameplay. To me, Cox feels like a expanded arcade shooter/platformer. I can basically just run on instinct and button mash. which allows me to relax.
• I have always enjoyed Supers and CoX allows me to indulge in that.
• I solo/duo most times. I can do that or, if the mood hits me, PuG just as easily.
• The Community. 'nuff said.
• While not mind-blowing, the graphics are immersive and realistic enough, even before Ultra Mode.
• The depth and variety of the ATs and Powersets. While I can't roll a true War Machine-type Character (while the other Super MMO could), I can do almost anything else reasonably well now. That is a good thing.

@Travlr (Main) / @Tymers Realm (Test)

why would I leave?

I barely qualify for the question, being a 38-month veteran, but I still play because I still have fun with my pretendy-fun-time dress-up smashy-fest. And where else can I get a pretendy-fun-time dress-up smashy-fest?

I stayed because the game had many features that I liked, particulary some design decisions that other games went the other direction on.

Because the community was decent, at least once I changed servers.

Because the amount of happy fun time for 15$/month is much greater than what two theatre tickets will give me.

Because every issue gives me additional benefit, and while not every feature is usable by me (like TFs, raids and such), there are always at least some QoL improvements. And I don't have to pay for the additional upgrades that are the next issues.

After playing that pen and paper RPG since the '80s, I'm burnt out on the sword & sorcery genre, so MMOs on that theme are out.

It's not a perfect game, and there is both room for improvement and a few design decisions that I disagree with, but overall, it has more good than bad, by an amount worthy of my money so far.

All the usual stuff about customization, game play, costumes, community, etc...


And also because it fits my life. I can play in 10 minute bursts if I need to because of real life interruptions. I can progress by playing in 10 minute bursts rather than not being able to accomplish anything in under an hour. If I have a solid block of time to myself, I can join a task force or knock out a mission arc. If I don't, I can run tips or single arc missions or radios. I can be in a mission, need to get up and leave myself standing there for twenty minutes if it comes to it and rarely die as a result (your occasional patrol in mission). When I do, I don't feel like I've just lost three days worth of progress due to onerous death penalties. In short, I can play it to have fun and not as a commitment. I've played the commitment MMORPGs before and they were good times when I was single and could spend eight hours raiding or camping a spawn point for the Girdle of Goblin-Punching but that's not my life these days and CoH fits who I am today.

Honestly? I play for the devs.

I like 90% of the people I meet in this game, I have a great SG and some great friends, but at the end of the day, I have to enjoy the game and the game world - that's why I left a fantastic group of people I'd been playing The Big Game with for three years, because I couldn't stand the GAME anymore.

Unlike most of the other MMOs out there, every patch doesn't bring such massive change/buff/nerfs that I have to totally rebuild at least one of the classes I play. I don't have to trade up my IOs for new ones because my powers no longer draw on X stat or focus. My classes may get tweaked, but there's not the constant cycle of class change that other MMOs seem to think it awesome.

Stuff gets added to this game, things get fixed, and things get changed, but it seems a much more additive experience. I have yet to log into this game and then log out in disgust because some change to the game changed it to the point where I have to re-learn it.

I've tried other MMOs, but I keep coming back here, because the game itself has a solid foundation that they don't destroy every time they add something. As long as the devs are loyal to the game, so will I be

75 about to hit 78 - As most have said, the game is still fun. I love to see how different mix of ATs/powers work together. Plus I can get on for 30 min and feel productive...

See you on the streets!