How did YOU get started?

As we get close to the release of I19, I have been thinking about all the changes to the game since I started playing. Inherent Fitness and a global slot system are going to be major improvements, IMHO. But back in 2004, we had no idea what was to come.

Ar/Dev Blasters were kings. We begged for teams in Perez Park. No one really knew about playing Scrappers or Controllers. The level cap was 40. Few people knew about better enhancements or where the stores were. The video card in my computer couldn't even run the game, so I had to upgrade. My son was 5 at the time, and he helped me make MagicMan, my first character on Triumph.

But I saw this video, and I was amazed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=292PZKiStsU&sns=em

My wife saw it and said "You can make costumes? Can I play?" She got her first 50 before I did.

So what got YOU hooked?

Well, see... my parents met and fell in love... then they decided to express that love in a physical way...

Oh.

I see... I guess I should read more than the thread title.

Er... a friend of mine offered me a free trial to give it a shot... the rest was history... and so was I...

I've loved comic books since I was a little kid, and always wanted to make my own superheroes. Unfortunately, I had zero artistic talent in the realm of drawing. I could write out my character's story, and imagine what they looked like, but I couldn't show anyone else what they looked like.

Then a couple friends (well actually a friend's older brother and his friends) introducced me to Champions and the HERO system. I'd played D&D and Werewolf before and really enjoyed them, but my first love was always superheroes, so naturally I was hooked on CHampions immediately.

I had heard of MMORPGs before, games you play online where every other character you see is someone sitting at their computer somewhere, and was intrigued by it. With my pen and paper gaming background it seemed to be a natural extension. Ultima Online and Everquest were the main ones at the time, but there weren't any superhero based games out there. In January of 2004 I saw an ad for City of Heroes in a random comic book I had picked up and thought it was the coolest game I'd ever heard of.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a computer at the time (well, I had one, but there was no internet and it wouldn't even run the Sims reliably), so I kind of forgot about the game for a couple years.

Later on, after I had a better computer, I was in Best Buy looking for an antivirus program when I happened across the original City of Heroes box for $19.99. City of Villains had just come out and that box was sitting next to it with a $49.99 price tag. Since I was short on funds that day, I picked up the cheaper one.

When I got home I loaded the game, which took about 4 hours (the computer still wasn't that great, only had 512 MB of RAM) and logged in for the first time that night.

Even though it was laggy and slow (which I thought was normal for an online game at the time, having never played one before), I was instantly hooked and spent the first 2 hours playing with the costume creator before I even entered the city.

My first character was an Energy/Energy blaster named Doppler (I wanted a name that suggested "Energy" and it was the first one I thought of not already taken). I went through a number of short lived characters in the first few weeks, and then I created my namesake character.....and here I am today, 5 years later.

I've always loved super heroes. I read various titles all through my teen years, and played a couple of super hero pen and paper RPG's in college. I've also been an avid PC gamer ever since I got my first computer (a Commodore 64 -- yes I realize I just dated myself ).

When I first heard about CoH I scoffed at the idea of an MMO. I just couldn't see paying $50 for a game then having to also pay a subscription fee each month just to play it. Of course, I didn't know that MMO's did free content updates. Had I known that it might have affected my opinion on the matter.

Well one day I was at the store to pick up a few things and thought I'd go browse the PC Games section to see if anything new and interesting had come out. I had that itch to try a new game. I saw CoH on the shelf once again and thought "Oh why the hell not, if I don't like it I can always cancel the sub."

I've been playing MMO's ever since. I've tried other MMO's here and there, but I always wind up coming home to CoH. It was my first and is still the best.

I was hooked when I died the first time and realized I didn't have to do a corpse run.

I was jumping from one dress up flash game to another and MNP told me I could play with the City of Heroes character creator while he was at work.

We shared an account until I had a system that could play the game.

I heard about City Of Heroes when it first came out, and I thought it was a cool concept, but that was at a time I didn't have a computer, thus it was a moot point to me. Several years passed and I did finally get a computer, in early 2008.

Sometime around summer I saw the advertisement for the City of Heroes free trial, and I remembered the game. I was on an MMO kick around then, so I pondered signing up. It wasn't until October 2nd 2008 that I finally decided to take the plunge. I figured "Hell, it's just a free trial. If it sucks, no harm."

I bought in twenty minutes into the trial, and have been here ever since.

I started playing a 'pay once' unnameable thing in early 2005, and in the box was a brochure depicting other unnameable things, one of which featured super duper heroic types, which I found to be very interesting, as I've always enjoyed reading super hero comics, but it wasn't until October of 2005 that I decided to take my first step into the heretofore untrod world of 'pay to play' unnameable things. Many, many, many payments later, I'm still here, still paying, still playing.

This particular unnameable thing was also my reward to myself for quitting smoking back in 2005. Monetarily speaking, $15 per month on an unnameable thing is less debilitating to the bank account than $30+ per week on smokes.

I had previously played "Freedom Force," but had never played an MMO. My oldest son was working at Game Stop, and while in there, I saw the box on the shelf. Looked at it and thought to myself, "I bet I would love this, but I probably shouldn't spend the time right now." Still, I picked up the box to gaze at whenever I was in the store (usually to give him a ride).

I think he saw me looking at it. I got the Collector's Edition for Christmas 2004. The game did not run well on our old computers, but in January we decided to replace one of the old clunkers with a new one and spent the extra money to upgrade the graphics. WOW. My wife saw it and asked if she could make a character . . . and soon we were battling over who got to play. So . . . another run to the store to get her an account of her own.

She got a bit addicted, and got a 50 before I did. (She had more time at home than I did.) Eventually she quit the game, but I keep her account for the kids and extras for me.

Back in March of 2005 my RL friend was getting into Ultima Online.
I'd never even heard about MMO's at that point, as I was strictly a console gamer.
Only PC game I'd played at that point was Maniac Mansion!
When he told me you had to pay a monthly subscription to play I couldn't believe it. So I held off for a month.

He wouldn't shut up about how cool it was to play with people from all over the world.

So one night in April of 2005 I went to Wal-Mart with the goal of buying UO and getting him off my back. I was looking at the various titles, trying to find UO. Then I saw the City of Heroes box and my love of superhero mythos made me pick it up.
I casually glanced at it and then put it back, resuming the search for UO.

Upon finding it I 1st noticed the price was nearly $30 more than COH then looking at the game I realized I'd be a fool to spend that much cash on a fantasy game. I hate fantasy type games.

So I picked COH back up and started reading the details, determined to get an MMO while I was there. But I still wasn't sold.

Wanna know what did it for me?
1 picture was worth more than the whole box. When I opened the teaser cover I saw a picture of a Hero flying high above the city a building ledge just beside him with the street far below.
SOLD!

I haven't regretted it since.

Got him hooked as well.

I heard rumors of an online game that was going to be like the Champions P&P game. I followed every bit of information that I could. In from day one. Strangely CO sucked, but I'm still here.

I spent months reseaching and planning to play EQ2. I'd heard about it through a buddy at work and for weeks he told me about the original game and how awesome the sequel would be. I had never played an MMO game before and figured this would be a good first one to try.

I pre-ordered the game weeks before it's release, and in the late summer of 2004 I went to the store to pick it up. While I was at the store, I figured I would look around and see if anything else interested me. CoH did but I knew nothing about it. Having already purchased EQ2, I had some extra cash to spend and figured I'd grab CoH in case EQ2 got boring after a month or two... you know .. as something else to do.

That afternoon I spent about 2 hours installing EQ2, had to stop and go get a video card, install it... and finally logged in for my first MMo experience. I spent about an hour in character creation and going through the tutorial before deciding to go ahead an install and subscribe to CoH that evening as well.

3 hours later I logged into CoH for the first time. I haven't played EQ2 since that day.

i was playing command and conquer generals zero hour(before everyone started to use cheats) online with a mt8 when he suggested i give this a try first i was abit hmmm first mmo and first game i had to continue to pay for...many many yrs later..boom..started in i6 and now here for i19 and more.

I had just started playing WoW (/shame), actually, and was complaining in a chatroom that I frequented (/additional shame) about the inability to customize my character sufficiently. One of the chatters mentioned this game and I gave it a whirl. Discontinued WoW shortly after and have stuck with this ever since. Well, off and on...but I always come back to this.

I was a Main Tank in World of Warcraft. I had some of the best gear and mitigation stats for the time I'd put in, but I looked like a troupe of gummi bears decided to vomit all over my clothes. I could tank Onyxia, Ragnaros, and Nefarian, but if I took on two even-level mobs outside of a raid instance I'd be cut apart.

Then Warsong Gulch came out. The game swung harshly towards PvP and I found myself (as a tank spec) utterly useless. Even speccing in to the much-adored (and later nerfed into oblivion) Fury spec I couldn't keep up with the push to get 'Grand Marshal' which took weeks of 20-hour-a-day play and a posse of up to 9 people to help you.

So I cancelled my sub and went to find a new game to keep me occupied. Like others in this thread, I bought the game solely on the Character Creator description etched on the box. I bought City of Villains the day it came out and I have never, ever looked back.

I think the moment I realized this game was truly right for me was when I first took on a cluster of 15 Council in Nerva on my Dark/Dark Brute, who was 29 at the time, and won with 90% of my health intact. He was my first 50 and will always be the most fun character I have.

Or it could have been the 9 other characters I made after my first one, all of whom I still have:

Der Wahnsinn (50 SS/Elec Brute)
Neuronomicon (see sig)
Andret (45 BS/Regen Scrap)
Human Air Horn (38 Sonic/NRG Blaster)
Irrevocable (32 AR/Kin Corr)
Blackjack Anderson (41 MM, deleted and remade as a DP/Dark)
Darwin Terrance (40 Stone/EM Tank)
United Guardian (38 Arch/Dev Blaster)
Korolv (43 Shield/Axe Tanker was originally named Argus Rithdelian)

When I first heard about MMOs, I couldn't figure out how you could justify 'paying for a game over and over'. I always swore to myself that I'd never play one, being perfectly content with diablo II on b-net for my online coop gaming fix.

Then I came home from school for fall break to find that my brother had been convinced by my cousin to sign up for one of those (*gasp*) pay to play MMOs, called city of heroes. I had never even known there was such a thing as a non-fantasy MMO, and a few days of looking over his shoulder was enough to show me the difference between a more or less non-supported online multiplayer game and the sort of content-rich continuously updated game the MMO model makes possible. And, of course, like many I was hooked by the customization possible. (You mean I don't have to wear a fugly purple mask if I want a good set for my sorceress? And I won't look like everyone else? Sold!) When I returned to school I signed up, and although my brother eventually moved on, I've been here ever since. It was quite a while before I realized the degree to which I'd lucked out in my choice of MMO - I would never have been nearly as happy in a more traditional game, but I'd probably never have known what I was missing.

I blame FlyingCodeMonkey (Mr. Brightfires-) for getting me to play City. I've never been a huge MMO fan, and would never have considered this one if he hadn't played.

I think my first toon, Palrah, also takes a share of the blame... If I hadn't had as much fun flying around with that silly, sword-swinging goof-ball as I did, there's no way I'd have stayed, much less made any of the other two-dozen or so characters I now have.

So, yeah... I blame the husband and the tank. It's their fault.

I read Scott Sharkey's "Memoirs of an Urban Vigilante" blog and was impressed. The sheer range of characters on offer, the interesting setting and the gameplay all appealed to me. (it helped he's a good writer and the activities of the Circle of Jerks were funny)

I didn't buy the game immediately, but inbetween Christmas and New Year that year I saw it for sale in PC World and bought it on a whim. Therefore on my first day ingame I was given a free Jingle Jet while in Outbreak - sold forever!

It started in the New Universe...

No, really, it did. Yes, I actually liked some of that series ("Quack!") - including D.P.7. But, I drifted from that before the New Universe died off, before the Pitt, etc.

Fast forward many years. Living on the west coast, meeting with friends with the friday night RP sessions. Bit of DND, bit of Shadowrun, some All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and Silver Age Sentinels. Made up a character inspired by Scuzz, in some ways - specifically just *oozing* acid and being able to use some rather nasty "spitballs," but taken to a few extremes (plus if you're at all familiar with the tri-stat ton-of-dice system, well... maybe you'd get how I could blow up a bunker with an acidic spitball... and as I recall, about 20 dice.) Very non-serious game and lots of fun, but one of our members ran off to join the army and the game was put on hiatus. We'd "pick it up again eventually."

... never did. (Of course, this is the group that did a continuation of a game 20 years after it started, too.)

So, looking for some superhero-type action, I picked up Freedom Force. OK, but not quite what I wanted. Wandering through Wal-Mart, I happened to notice City of Heroes (DVD/collectors edition.) Twenty bucks - supposedly retailing at thirty at the time, but it was walmart. Looked it over, said "Pay a fee after I buy it? Yeah, right!" Looked again, said "Twenty bucks, free month, what the hell."

.... haven't let the sub lapse since, and that was... *glancing over* a week or so before the forum reg date. Added a second sub, and I'm somewhere over 200 characters in. >.<

See my Guides and Tutorials

Started out with EQ and then moved to SWG for my MMO experiences and found them to be ok but something didn't feel right, they felt like something was missing. Then I recall finding out about CoH, not sure were, I think it was in a ad in a comic-book. I came in some where between after the launch of issue 2 and before the release of issue 3. Either way it got me interested, and the rest as they say is history.

Partner's friend gave a free trial, it got given to me and I bought a second account.

I have to admit I was very dubious about a game with a recurring subscrption model, but the costume creator hooked me and it was pretty fun once I made some friends ingame...so here I am five years later.

My friends and I were losing interest in Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes was in our view. The others have since left, but I'm still here 6+ years later.

Was a big animated Justice League fan, wanted a game that could play a little like that. Found the animated City of Heroes trailer and ordered it from the US. Also a friend of mine was playing on the US servers already, but I think he's long gone from the game at this point.

Was a comic book and RPG geek when I was a kid. Well, at least on the surface. I've been a computer geek since I was 6. Still, got hooked on D&D, BatttleDroids, and the like. Even got to playtest for StarFleet Battles when I was in High School.

Due to being stationed overseas with the Army, it was a bit tough to keep up on comic books (but my bank account thanked me). So I RP'ed a lot. Kudos to Wargames West for keeping me in cool supplements. I was MAJORLY bummed when they closed down in 2001 (the Internet did them in, oddly enough).

Anyhoo, I'd seen CoH when it first came out. But at the time I wasn't playing much of anything. And coming from a Quake/UT background, I was somewhat...condescending of "rent to pwn". The closest I got was the last iteration of MultiPlayer BattleTech before EA took a nice, greasy **** all over it. ALMOST considered paying for it (or at least abusing my connections to get a free account). That and the fact that I was broke and putting myself through college working two full-time jobs kinda put a crimp in it. Knowing what I know now, had I picked it up, I'd have never completed college...



Fast forward to 2007. I saw the TV Commercial for Pirates of the Caribbean Online, stating "free to play". Having enjoyed the movies, I signed in and had a blast. Paid for 6 months. A year later, I'd built a new computer finally (the last one was built in 2000 and while it wasn't on it's last legs, it'd been upgraded as much as it was going to). I was perusing at Fry's and saw CoH again. I'd remembered being interested in it. But never really picked it up. So I did (narrowly choosing it over Freedom Force).

The rest...is legend...

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