How did YOU get started?

I started because of my husband, who started because friends of his were playing. He said he wouldn't start til villains became available (and when he had a computer that could run it). So in Dec of 2006, IIRC, John got started... and he got other friends into it...

... and they wouldn't shut up about it.

So in July 2007, to learn what they were talking about, I gave it a go. Couldn't play more than 5 minutes at a time without becoming motionsick, but eventually got better at it. My first character was a COH recreation of my Trinity Blood alterego, the timetravelling troublemaking techie pagan nun, Sister Johanna Sinclair (en/en blaster). Loved her to pieces.

Next major character was Agent (Sorina) Tavarisch (grav/kin troller) who didn't quite gel for me as a character concept until I riffed an impromptu in-character cell phone call post-mission to Positron... the end result of that little joke became a full length City of Heroes novel, the first of a trilogy. Go ahead and laugh.

But as early as I-10, I thought, "you know, I've been making AMVs for ages... I wonder if I could do a video for this game."

That video led to another... and another... when I suddenly realized I spent more time filming than playing the damn game...

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I registered for the original forums in September 2001. Been here pretty much ever since, although I have taken a couple of breaks from the game here and there.

I am a bit of a Luddite I guess. I didn't get my own computer until 1996. I played Populous, Rise of Nations, and Freedom Force. I dearly loved Freedom Force and found an online community that spent time customizing powers, avatars, and such, but still not an MMO. The Freedom Force community had an early interest in CoH while in development. Many of the people on the Freedom Force boards played in beta and jumped in when the game went live. I lasted only a short time before I joined up in May of 2004.

The monthly fee didn't seem that much especially when there were so many free upgrades that other MMOs would charge for. $15 a month is $0.50 a day to play? I used to burn through that much easily just playing pinball. It's a lot cheaper than movies, drinking, or cigarettes to name a few 'entertainment' outlets.

The travel powers, the maps, the costume creator, the power selection flexibility all are seductive. Global names and channels made communication a whole lot easier than supergroup chat. Villains, proliferation, new powersets kept me coming. Ouroboros made me literally squeal being able to flashback. I actually embraced Architect Entertainment for what it was intended; I never leveled a 50 within a couple hours. AE means more content that rewards xp to players plain and simple. The inventions mean more individual customization and prioritization of power enhancement. Much to do about PvP, I was never a twitch Lara Croft uber player, and my system has never been cutting edge. I was always glad PvP existed and always glad it wasn't thrust upon those not wanting to participate. Recluse Victory is still a good place to dabble and get baubles from NPCs of opposing alignments.

The new taskforces, the new inventions, the Alpha slot all have my continued interest. I hope I am here for another 6 years.

Had a group of anime/comic book/video game friends try out the game back in August of 2004 and decided to tag along.

We had played Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast together a few years before and decided to give this a go. After all, it was superheroes and the costume creator was great.

I watch the video and miss the days of being able to summon multiple pets.

I was a D&D nerd in middle and high school (late 80s to mid 90s). In 1996 I started playing an online text game called Gemstone III which ran on AOL, then transferred to a beta test of the spinoff game Dragonrealms. I briefly quit that game due to cost (this was when AOL was charging by the hour) and got started playing free MUDs. I played for about 8 months on a MUD called The Forest's Edge.

When AOL went free, I went back to Dragonrealms and played one character continuously for about 7 years. I worked as a support GM for that game for a year before swearing off all MMO-type games for a while. I spent some amount of time playing a Priest in WoW, but never had a top level character and never in the year or so I played, experienced a raid.

About 2 years ago the state I live in got hit by a hurricane. My power was out for 2 weeks. I was complaining about this to a friend so he let me come over to his air conditioned apartment. He pulled up City of Heroes and showed off his character. I said that game looks terrible and I'd heard it got a lot of mediocre reviews. He said try it. I did and I hated everything about it. I didn't know about sewer teams and was really bored running around solo. Then I got invited to my first big teams. Wow. Ok, this was the game for me. Chaotic, crazy, well designed team bouts that were more about fun than "challenge." It was everything WOW (and Dragonrealms, but in a different way) weren't. So it's pretty much been the only game I've been playing for the past 2 years.

I would probably be considered a consummate geek, since I collected comics and read sci-fi and fantasy books. I had played Dungeons & Dragons in the early days of the game. That was my first introduction to RPG games. I was into it as long as my small circle of friends were into it. But over time, people move on or lost interest, however, I still had the RPG bug.

I experimented with various games like Marvel Super-Heroes, DC Heroes, and Champions. I even tried Battletech. But they never seemed to hold enough interest for me. I guess it didn't help that I didn't have too many friends that were interested in the same things I was interested in.

Then I found SSI's Dungeons & Dragons computer games. That kicked a$$ to me. I found myself immersed in those games. However, those games didn't seem complete to me, even when SSI came out with the module creation software.

I found myself branching out to other computer games until I discovered Diablo. This was the next level for me. I could not stop playing this. Diablo II made my addiction even worse. But even then, it did not feel complete.

Then that one fateful day in 2006, my roommate gave me a birthday gift. It was the City of Heroes Combo pack (Heroes and Villains) that was packaged together exclusively for Sam's Club. I installed the game and started playing. Not knowing everything about the game, I decided to see if I could recreate one of my Champions PnP characters into this game. El Torito was my first creation. He was a MA/SR scrapper. The CoH version wasn't quite what I had originally created, but at least in this game, I could see how far I could go with him.

Since then, I have never let my account slip. Here I am with 15 level 50 toons and enjoying every bit of it.

There was a time I had considering ending my subscription, but then I started to make some friends in the game. If it weren't for those friends, I would have been gone 2 years ago. The community in this game rocks!

Where to begin.

In an issue of Game Informer, I was reading a review of Final Fantasy X. (2001 was it?) I then see a preview of City Of Heroes, and think "I'd like to try that." It was still a few years out though.

The game launched when I was still in the middle of basic training (United States Air Force), and I didn't have a PC at the time. I did however, see someone playing it on their laptop when we were at Security Forces training.

Though I didn't get around to buying the game myself, as I didn't get my own PC till 2006. (PS2 games ate up the vast majority of my off duty time before then......hey, I was a 20 year old single male, and that's the best time to game for ungodly hours.) I honestly don't know how I survived that long without a PC though. If I could go back in time and buy one earlier, I would have.....but oh well.

April 11, 2006, and have been here ever since.

Long story short, I'm being forced to play against my will by hostage takers.

I arrived in December of 2005 and immediately was presented with a Jingle Jet. My Mom always gives me cash and just let's me buy what I want for Christmas and I was outshopping for presents when I spied COV. I decided that was MY christmas gift from her and immediately threw it into my cart. I have been hooked ever since.

LOL I can still recall how green I was back then... As I leveled my first villain I foudn myself at 14 and could not see why ANYONE would waste a power selection on travel when they gave us all that neat jet. Of course a week or less later the jet disappeared and I quickly discovered the next lesson I needed .. at level 24 you CAN do a trial and respec your character. I think I finally got Fly at 18 and then as I kept talking to my brand new SG mates about why I was always out of end and they were not I discovered Stamina.

My how times have changed. I think it took all of one or two quick questions a fast forum check and I had a handle of the Incarnate System. Now I am one of the ones taking people aside and saying quietly (in Tells) "You really don't want to take that team with 5 unslotted Heroes and try to do Apex. Run some ITFs, LGTFs, Kahn TFs or whatever. Get yourself some shards and craft!"

Well the absolute beginning was playing pen and paper RPG superhero games way back when.

But really it all started for me after i left UO, while it fulfilled my needs as a game not so much as an environment ... if that makes any sense, and i found a website for a superhero based MMO ... i went mental over it showed it my other friends who were just getting into MMO's like me .... and lost the url.

Luckily i re-found the game a little later, not so long after it had launched commercially.

Why did i leave? Simple remember that pen and paper game i played ... some one bought it and was making a MMO out of it (happy, happy joy, joy) ... AND the company had a proven track record ... HOW COULD IT FAIL????

Then i came back home.

The rest as they say are bitter recriminations and wasted years in other MMO's.

November of 2005 SWG got hit with the infamous NGE. I had been a pretty dedicated fan of Galaxies 'til then, but that debacle really cooled me to that game, and SOE in general.

I'd been playing that game since December of 2003, so this really was a blow. What do I fill my time with? Tried EVE, Everquest II (a couple buddies were REALLY into that one), Matrix Online, and a whole slew of single-player PC games, but nothing I could lose myself in. Character limits on a server (like one or two); really complex levelling systems or really redundant powers or cookie cutter builds all turned me off. What was I to do?

In early 2007, I was shopping in Walmart for... something, and the Good vs. Evil Edition of CoH/V caught my eye. Fantasy type games I never could get really excited about, but then again, I'd never much cared for comics. (Poor vision; I can't read the small print in comic books.) I was intrigued, and got it, and made a brute. And HAD A BLAST.

Seriously. This is my favorite game. I can't think of any other that I am excited to play when I go without for a time. Since this is a sub, I need to cancel sometimes while I'm posted somewhere without access to the Internet - like this past summer, when GR was released. But resubbing was the among the first things I did once I moved back to civilization. Love City of Heroes and I'll play 'til they shut down the servers.

My altitis is so bad I STILL don't have a level 50. I'm jealous of everyone that's gotten a spouse to jump in; still working on mine.

Sometime in 2006: I was reading a long forgotten comic book and saw an advertisement for City of Villains. Something clicked. Having never played a villain in any game I decided to explore my dark side for once. A year later I bought City of Heroes. My subscription has lapsed for only 1 month in 4 years

I'll be here until the end

A friend of mine has played CoH for a long time, and occasionally promoted it. Thing is, I love me some fantasy games and elves and stuff, so I wasn't much interested. Back in the day, also, one of the selling points was that there was no crafting and nothing like "gear", but I saw this as a downside; one of my favorite things about my MMO of choice was crafting stuff. (Even though their crafting system was, well, not awesome.)

Anyway, come July of this year, Blizzard announced that they were pushing real names in forums, and this on top of multiple refusals to even talk about letting us make global friends without using real names, well, it convinced me that my time of fighting Internet Dragons was over. I started asking around. Two of my other friends who also used to kill Internet Dragons with me and I got together and talked, and of the games we could find, CoH was the only one we could identify which we could play on the Mac (necessary), and which all three of us were at least willing to play (one person ruled out space opera, another ruled out LotR, etc.).

So I signed up. Asked my friends for tips on how to play and what to do, created characters which were tragic failures, sucked at costume creation, and so on. You know, the usual thing. I think it was a week before I got a character that I still have. But I did enjoy playing, at least some of the time, and the community was a nice change.

Fast-forward, and here I am, marketeering, trying to do SCIENCE!! on questions of tactics and strategy, and wondering whether I should buy another five character slots and start on that third page.

Hehe my start was odd.


I was the raid leader of a guild in....another game and word got back to me that a couple of my core members (main tank and top wizard) were raid skipping, playing another game. Since they were brothers and given the source (the main tank's wife, our top cleric), it was a situation I had to deal with. So before I did anything, I called them and asked them about it. They told me about CoH (which I had stopped following after they ditched the origin system) and I picked up a copy. During off nights, we would play and they had already gotten close to the cap so I was the lowbie sidekick. Coming from EQ, the very idea of fighting mobs 9 levels higher (outside of raids) was inconceivable but they showed me that and more. I rolled a fire blaster at their insistence and man, between fireballs and burn patches, it was just ridiculous how stuff died. I got to see all of the things newbies nowadays have no idea about. I sat at the Brickstown tram for an hour watching my xp bar fill up. I saw how crazy Burn and Smoke Grenade were. Hover-snipe while mobs just ran back and forth until they died? Yup. Of course, after the purple patch and burn nerf, my guildies quit playing and so did I for a while (Omens of War came out...and WoW shortly after that) but when I came back (Issue 4 release), I deleted that blaster and started playing around with some of the characters I had made (but not played) back then. Opened the second account in May of '05 and been here (on annual billing, no less) ever since. The only time I regretted it was the first time I signed up for a year. Not three weeks later, Issue 5 hit Test. Boy was I questioning that decision for months afterward.

Well, City Of Heroes was on my radar for a while. My previous MMO experience had been Dark Age of Camelot for a few years and then a few months of Star Wars Galaxies (much to my disappointment at how unfinished it arrived.) I had been a huge fan of Freedom Force and was keeping tabs on CoH, even back when it was still an open power system. Finally, one fateful day came the beta invite and I've been here just about ever since.

After re-watching Spider Man, i googled 'super hero mmo'

Friend of mine put me onto it in i3. Oh, boy, was I green, even after reading the Gamefaqs material. In particular, I didn't know you could put more than one of a given enhancement in a power. My slot selections came out very oddly, and I rerolled Thunderforce for the first time shortly after figuring that one out. (Annoyingly, now they give out respecs like candy, I must have about five on most toons. I sure could have used some back then...)

If I knew then what I know now... well, knowing that Willpower would eventually be the set Regen wanted to be wouldn't have helped much in i3, I guess, but I wouldn't have made my second toon a "pure empath", either.

I still play, and I'm impressed with the improvements that have been made to the game. Shame they added a loot system, mind.

My memory is somewhat hazy, but:

I can't remember where I first heard about the game, or whether I just stumbled across it, but I found the website quite some time before the game was actually released. It sounded pretty cool - the idea of designing and customizing my own hero appealed to me quite a bit (both thematically and mechanically), and there really wasn't much else similar at the time.

Not sure what I'd have been playing at the time. Possibly I was still playing a couple MUDs (Avatar, Aardwolf), but I think I may have ventured into commercial MMO's by then, in which case probably Neocron or Anarchy Online.

With no release date at that time I lost interest fairly quickly (I'm not the type to follow a game religiously from announcement up until release - if I'm not able to actually play it I go do other things), until a few weeks before release I re-discovered it (again, I don't remember how/why), got into open beta, created Biowraith, thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I've been playing ever since.

Having Dark Miasma as my main was interesting, as I got to see it go from one of the gimpier Defender sets to one of the strongest. I also seem to remember one of the Rad toggles having unlimited range and doing damage over time on top of the debuffs. You can imagine the results...