How to select start location?

Hi there. Total CoH noob. I started a trial account last night, picked a server, made a toon, and it started me automatically in Praetoria.

How do you select where you start at? Is it a server thing?

Thanks.

There's that thing that pops up at the very beginning of character creation that asks if you want to make a hero, Praetorian, or villain. Heroes start in Paragon City, villains start in the Rogue Isles, Praetorians start in Praetoria. Heroes and villains don't have access to all the archetypes, though, so if for instance you wanted a Mastermind, you're going to have to be a Praetorian or a villain. So far. I hear rumors they're thinking about changing that in some future update. Maybe when the games goes to freemium, I dunno. I've only sort of been half paying attention to that hype.

It's a new player thing, you have to start your first character in Praetoria. If you start a new character you will be given the option to start in Paragon City (Hero ATs only), The Rogue Isles (Villain ATs Only) or Praetoria.

I see, no wonder I didn' see the option anywhere. Cool, thanks!!

It is kind of wierd isn't it....

With the next major update, it seems like there really won't be any such thing as basic "Hero Archetypes" or "Villain Archetypes" anymore, there'll just be ten "Basic" archetypes, any of which can start as a hero or villain. It'll probably only be the four Epic ATs who will have to start on the "proper" side (and even they'll be able to switch sides after they hit level 20).

Right now, Pretoria is much nicer-looking and has a more interesting branching storyline than the other two areas, but its enemies are generally tougher (without actually giving you any more experience). Villain-side has an ugly starting area which is difficult to get around without a travel power, and only two possible starting story contacts, but has some fairly interesting story arcs that are very different for each set of contacts. Hero-side has a choice of two starting areas (both very clean-looking, but with older graphics), with five possible contacts in each (depending on your character's Origin), but the mission arcs (questlines) they send you on are on the dull side and all rather similar (not to mention often indirect).

With the next update (not expected for another month or two), however, the Hero and Villain parts of that paragraph will no longer be true.

"without a travel power": Don't they hand those out at level 5 in boxes of caramel popcorn these days?


Player of a first-wave Taxibot,

Welcome to the game!!
I hope, besides that initial annoyance, you end up enjoying it here!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Recon-022 I see, no wonder I didn' see the option anywhere. Cool, thanks!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Recon-022 It is kind of wierd isn't it....

Yep! I thought it was a silly thing for them to do and fortunately it is going away in a few months!
Basically, they wanted to show off the new Praetoria zones and tutorial and have that be the introduction for new players, but I always felt that was a big mistake. City Of Heroe's greatest strength is its large amounts of personal choices to make and enjoy the game the way you want to!
I blame marketing, but, fortunately, new players will be able to start wherever they want again, once the next free issue comes along in a little bit!

Best of luck and feel free to ask any questions that come up!
This community generally falls over itself to help and answer questions.

Also, for a great source of information: paragonwiki.com is very awesome!

Welcome to the game, Recon-022!