Who influenced you in this game?

Crap, where do I even start...

Hubby (aka Bloodspeaker) for getting me into the game. And for reaffirming that an Energy/Energy blaster is a great character to start with... blast blast blast KNOCKBACK!

The videographer community for helping me figure out all the various little tips and tricks that kept inching my videos toward something better than they were before.

A particular redname who shall remain nameless whose signature character got my muse back into gear after she went into hiding for almost two years.

Various forumites for making me laugh, making me think, giving me advice, and generally being awesome. They are too numerous to name, but I'm pretty sure they know who they are.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

The Champion community as a whole. They kept me here as long as I have been. I had ventured away to Freedom during a lull in teaming on Champion, and I was ready to quit. I ventured back to Champion, and I can't conceive of leaving the game. It's home of some of the nicest people, and easily the most skilled players I have ever teamed with.

Silas, whose passion for Corruptors got me really into playing them, and broke me from my habit of playing only melee.

Force and Disciple of Horus, who showed me how unstoppable scrappers can be.

The various marketeers (specifically Ping) whose tips and tricks turned me into a dirty, ebil one-of-them.

Cobalt Azurean, who has always been willing to help new players, and always made himself available for a Giant Monster team influenced my decision to do the same.

Thank you, Champion.

Really good idea for a thread. There are a few things that I remember most and appreciated immensely at the time.

One of my first memories of those early days (only three years ago, so nothing to many of) was some random hero in AP offering to trade with me, as someone mentioned above, I had no idea what that was and just sort of went with it. I was amazed to see that this person, a total stranger, had just given me $1m influence. I was stunned, and said "thank you so much" in broadcast (I didn't know how to use tells yet). That stayed with me, and I pay it forward every chance I get.

In my first week or two playing, I entered a costume contest in AP (don't see many of those anymore), and I didn't win, not by a long shot. My costume wasn't anything special (to this day, while I love to make new costumes, they're rarely noteworthy, let alone cc winners), so I wasn't too surprised as I looked around and saw totally amazing costumes, and heroes striking poses, dropping auras, pets, etc. It was magical to me. Who knew there were so many options? So much to get, do, be? I loved it, just standing there soaking in all the goodness. Anyway, I suddenly got a tell from someone (one of the judges) who told me that she liked my costume and was giving me a runner-up prize. I forget how much influence it was now, several million probably, but I was most grateful. To this day, I suspect that she did that to all of us without even a three month vet badge who entered but didn't win.

Another person who influenced me (not with actual influence this time) was the owner of one of the first sgs that I joined. He took me around, gave me Halloween costume pieces and took me to Croatoa to turn them in, showed me where the tailor was, and told me so much about the basics of the game. He'd take me on missions with him, telling me how to get to them in PI even on a lowbie (this was when you had to be close to the person sk'ing you), and generally made me feel happy about the game. He never talked down to me or made me feel like an idiot (no matter how stupid my questions must have seemed to him); he just was patient and kind and funny. We're actually still friends to this day.

One thing that I love about COX is the playerbase. The game is awesome, engrossing, well-written, endless hours (days, weeks) of fun, but it's the people who really make this game special.

I love reading these.

I started in round 1 beta, so I've actually forgetten more people over the years then I can remember, so I will have to go with The First 100 as a collective group. Some of them I keep in touch with, others I've lost track of over the years.

There was just something about that group of players, we had a shared experience that you just can't replicate these days. MMO's were fairly new to the scene for most of us, a hero mmo was utterly unique. So for most of us this was not only our first MMO, but it was in a time when MMO's themselves were just starting out and no one really knew much about them. It wasn't a mix of newbies and vets, you didn't have people with extensive experience in other MMOs, and none of us had a superhero mmo we could compair CoH to.

We didn't have number crunchers like we do today. We weren't at the point that we cared about the numbers yet, about how the system worked. We all had character concepts that we were dying to play and had been waiting to play for years ever since the game was announced back in 2001 and we first started following it. All of us were forum regulars since pretty much the start of the forums and the way we got into the beta was by continually checking in on the boards. Come october I'll have been a part of City of Heroes in one shape or another for 10 years of my life.

Those first few weeks were just sheer joy of playing and bug hunting. We could only play a certain amount of time and only one certain days of the week. We were all newbies and we had no idea what we were doing. We didn't know how ANYTHING worked. For most of us we had no idea about the holy trinity from other MMOs. It was a unique combination of utter inexperience.

Once that second wave came in that was lost. We knew what was going on. Sure it was all new to the new players but they had questions and we had answers. We didn't know everything but we knew enough that it set us apart from everyone else and so we became the first vets.

Then as beta got bigger that enjoyment was still there but it diminished.. we could see the flaws in the game and began to break it (in very creative fashions), and so we became the first openly critical voices to be heard while newer waves of bright eyed youngsters were added that fed off of our energy... the boards were a very bad place towards the end of beta. We knew stuff was wrong but we couldn't explain fully why it was wrong. Systems were still undiscovered, formulas were not available, and the only numbers we had were those that we had figured out which were limited and flawed. It was a frustrating time as we knew beta was also coming to an end.

So being one of the first 100 is a double edged sword.. we got to do everything first before anyone had seen any aspect of this game, but that also meant we did everything first and were both the bright eyed newbies that just made a character out of sheer love of comics and heroes... as well as the first to vented openly when we found something we didn't like.

In the end I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. Its something that you just can't replicate these days as MMO's have been around for so long that the intitial magic that was there at the time of CoH's opening is just lost. Its also the only MMO with such a great community that sticks together over the years that even saying The First 100 will bring a few nods and smiles to faces from those that know and remember that simpiler time.

I would definetly have to say my mom. She intoduced me to the game 6 years ago and helped me with pretty much everything when I first started playing. I thank her for not letting me be a total noob :P

For melee characters, a fellow playing a BS/Regen named Kariss. He helped me with my Regen and SR back in the I2 days, but ended up quitting the game over the HO nerf. We tanked a lot of Hami raids on our Regens back in the day.

For blasters, every terrible blaster on Victory. You all know who you are, and you should be ashamed.

For all things support, and especially Kinetics, a Fire/Kin named Demon Sorcerer. Knowledgeable, polite, kindhearted, and one of the best PvPers I had the pleasure of teaming with. It's just too bad HE'S A QUITTER. (j/k bud if you read this you should totally come back when we go F2P)

Hmmmm

PvE:

I'd guess Slax from Infinity and Silas from Champion, they're both pretty hardcore powergamers and get things done while having fun with whatever they're on. Marut is up there as well, really polite and a leader to try and break new stuff.

PvP:

Too many to mention but....

• Vex, Dex, Hot for making the tedium a lot less so. Forums are always nice to read when they are around. Lots of laughs all around too.
• Doyler is always pretty relaxed and fun to team with.
• Ajax was great, always had advice and very friendly.
• Lib, Psoma, Trez, SIR, Slax, Siolffir, Trance all the gang from dUmb, great people to team with.
• XFunk for the hilarious times.
• Void for doing more on a SO'd Stalker than a lot of people with better builds.
• Budweiser, for all the crap he takes he has tried to keep interest going.
• Oz for being terminally angry and competitive.
• Masque for patience and mentoring.
• MAH for builds and advice.
• AngelsFist and the gang from HVND for kicking dirt in our faces and making us get competitive.
• Proj and Sabin and Stryker since I wouldn't have started to PvP without them around.
• TMK - The Mighty Kraken because Ice Blasters will return...
• Psyrene for being super chill
• Syphonics for finding out about the "Mute" button on Vent.
• CriticalKat for holding it together when everyone was trying to torpedo her events...
• Twixt for making people rage to this day.

Too many people to list, actually. Especially in-game some who probably don't want the recognition either, so I won't list them specifically but they know who they are.

I will say in terms of my earliest formative forum years I can think of a few people who managed, probably without knowing it, to set me on the path to where I am now. Amauros, the original SR scrapper god (before the Confessor, all hail the King) gave me a lot of insight into pre-launch SR and some inside dirt I wasn't originally a party to, and much of my eventual work on understanding all scrapper secondaries starts with him and his guides.

Before that the En/En thread/guide started by SnipeFu was probably the first discussion thread about a powerset combination worthy of the term "discussion." A lot of interesting debate, and information, and it made me think the forums might be good for something other than parody song lyrics. That thread actually caused me to sign up for the forums, so you can blame him.

And indirectly, going all the way back to the Powers Quantification Project, Topdoc pushed me to switch from informally measuring things to formally measuring and releasing information about things. He's actually in many ways a more dedicated quant than I am, and he goes way back literally to the beginning. I was experimenting with demorecord measuring of cast times about the same time he was, and you could say Arcanatime traces its lineage all the way back to the PQP.

And I'm going to mention someone that *didn't* influence me, but I feel deserves some mention here anyway. People who spent all their time on the US forums have probably known me as the Maven of Mathemagic for nearly seven years. But in a parallel dimension we know as "Europe" there was a player paralleling me and in some ways exceeding me on those forums, who I didn't even hear about until I think late 2005. I don't even know if he still plays or not, but Dr. Rock deserves some mention here because he was doing a lot of what I was doing up to about 2006 and getting a lot less credit for it. He even wrote a damage mitigation comparison *program* that I think might still be floating around somewhere, something I never had the energy to do.

There's also a ton of players past and present who remind me why I do what I do even when it sometimes seems like a lot of work for something I pay to entertain me. People like BuffyASummers who hasn't been around for a long while (at least on the forums), people like Stupid_Fanboy who was more active in the past but is still around now, and people like Zombie Man who I've clashed with in the past at times but does a great service to the community with his guides. In naming them, I'm probably doing a disservice to the many others I've looked upon as examples to try to match but haven't mentioned: I'm sorry about that.

And yeah, Snowglobe, your badge guides count so its ok to be mentioned in the same breath as me.


I also should mention Castle, who was not the first dev I ever talked to, but was probably the first dev to talk to me as a relative equal (way back in CoV beta, probably before he knew any better, heh). I learned a lot about the game from him, and I tried to return the favor whenever possible. But between Castle, BaB, and pohsyb, all of which have moved on, I know probably more about the game than anyone outside the four walls of Paragon Studios. The current devs continue to treat me nicely, but they were the first three to let me peek behind the curtain (after I cut a hole in it and set it on fire, of course). If my understanding of the game is valuable, they deserve at least some of the credit for that.

There are a lot of great people who make this game: producers, writers, artists, and I love our current dev team, but I bet there's not a quant out there that wouldn't kill to have an afternoon alone with the one-time lead powers person, the one-time lead animator, and a core programmer of the game engine, free from restrictions on what they can talk about. I consider myself very lucky to have had those three people count as friends of mine, even with the professional distance required.

I also have to thank Positron in here, even though the dude still doesn't answer all my PMs, for something. However, I can't say what that thing is. Thanks anyway.


Basically, the devs have made it possible for me to know everything I do now, and the players here and in-game remind me why I even care to know everything I do now.

@Twoflower got me in the game.
Everyone else kept me here.

Not so much for the game, but certainly for the forums, and in two very, very different ways, Pilcrow and UncleBob.

Unfortunately none of them are in game any longer, but Savitri, Ariel Arcanus and Spellbinder X were three players I met in the Hollows when I first started the game and we hung together all the way to level 50 and created the Paragonian Knights together.

Now I miss them.

The PK and the crew from CoHGuru.com kept me coming back.

This is a really tough one. I started 4 years ago on MA/SR Scrapper (boy was life hard) and I was instantly baffled by the great community and generosity of the people I met on Virtue. But I think I can say that the person who had the most influence on me was Biffinator since he brought me into the Legion of Freedom which in turns contains all the people who've shaped the way I create and play characters these days. There's a lot more but the biggest ones would be:
Rainbow Avenger and the Proleterian: Showing me how to have the bleakest outlook on humanity possible and still manage to smile. Also how to make RP concept characters that can still tear you a new one...

Fury Flechette and 2 Sweet: Who pretty much completly changed the way I view and design builds and characters.

The day I bought CoH I also bought another game: Mech Commander 2.
Through pure chance I installed CoH first and started playing. Interestingly, I was dismayed that I was unable to find a "single player" option and that I was forced to play in an environment fully populated with all these STRANGERS.

I solo'd exclusively for at least a month, made one or two "acquaintances" and played a little on duo teams but never joined a SG or even a PU team. Before long all servers were completely full of sub-level 12 toons and I started deleting some to make room for other low-level toons because I found soloing past level 12 to be just tedious and unfun.

Around this time I found myself playing on my level 7 Empath Offender and started getting tells from someone I had never met BEGGING me to help a team in Perez Park. I explained that I only soloed and that my Empath was not spec'd for team play. After more begging and pleading I relented and started sprinting towards Perez and consequently to the other side of the zone. I arrived just in time to witness the team wipe, which was dismaying. What really bothered me was the blame that was heaped upon me by the players of the dead characters. Here I was with just Healing Aura and the other team members were spread over a large area, dead. Like I said, I soloed and did not have Resurrect or even Heal Other. The abuse that I suffered from those two soured me to teaming even more.

About 6 months into the game, just as I was thinking of finally opening Mech Commander, I happened upon a costume contest on Champion. Ironically, it was on a toon that was a duplicate of the Empath that I had already deleted out of disgust. While standing around for the contest and afterward I met a level 31 toon named "Golden Pyro". We talked and she invited me to her SG, "Paragon's Golden Heros (sic)". From that point on I made the effort to ask into SG teams whenever I saw them. Pyro and her friend "Tokyo Dropout" ran together most every day and I tagged along whenever I could.

At some point I expressed dissatisfaction with my performance as a Defender (no ****, I was still thinking like an Offender). Tok (Tokyo Dropout) said to me "Well, maybe you're just not cut out to be a Defender." To me, this was a galvanizing observation. If I was going to be a Defender then dammit I was going to be a GOOD one. As soon as I got to level 24 I headed straight to IP and joined a PU Respec Trial which we succeeded at gloriously. I immediately respecc'd into a DEFENDING Empath and from that point PRIDED myself in my abilities as a Defender.

Golden Pyro, Tokyo Dropout, The Sampler, a few others and myself rode the train all the way to the end of the line with Pyro and Ainu (my Emp) dinging 50 one day apart.

How close I was to playing Mech Commander for a month and then moving on to something else...

Dinah and Marut helped me find my spinal column and use it as a waypoint.

Dinah toughened me up early on. This was my first game. Di was a seasoned gamer and worked in the industry. Having her at my side is the best armor upgrade a new player can earn. I learned how to deal with every aspect of online adversity through her example and advice. She's just so ballsy. Gotta love that in a woman, the Clint Eastwood-like grit in her voice when she says to someone: "Hey, man. I don't even know you."

Marut turned my head. Before i9, my group and I hosted roleplay events for our server. Other groups ran the old Hamidon raids that we attended. Probably why I was in awe of Marut in the training room server. It was one thing for us to organize a troupe of players to walk a stage (no small feat) and another to see him organize an army to march into battle. It was just a different side of the game that I'd never explored. Patient, determined, commanding, trying everything - he had our team of scrappers effortlessly team teleport from one Yellow to the next. I can't begin to explain how epic that felt. When i9 hit live, a few weeks had passed before I realized no one on our server had completed the new Hamidon. I wasn't prepared to be the leader he is but knew that there was more than enough talent and ability in my goup and our friends to pull it together because he made it look amazing and possible. It took us four scheduled days of practice blueside then four redside. The desire to help organize things PvE-side since is because I once got to see Superman stop a train.

If I want something off the beat and track, I ask myself.. WWSandolphanD? Some of you know Sandolphan from his Mastermind guide. He's one of the many talented leaders in my group who methodically re-examines every puzzle piece and finds time to write guides for others (I admire him for that). When we set up something like a Hami Nuke, it's not about brute force but tactics. It wasn't about the number we dropped but the timing and order. He thinks about every little detail and how to make it smoother. If you play chess with him, he'll flip the board and make you consider why you didn't approach from underneath. Every effort, successful or not, with an -unexpected- result ends with him asking,"What was different that time?"

American_Valor taught me the value of the rewardless (seemingly) effort by posted a cross server challenge for an Rikti event that is technically not an Invasion objective and gave no tangible in-game reward (no badge, no merits, no soup for you!). He was nice enough to engage me in an -endless- relay of Q&A so I could grab Sandy, whip some interest into the unsuspecting and enter our server into his Dropship Challenge. It was a hell of a payoff in how we felt that night and one of the reasons I stay in game after 7 years. Even when you think you'd done it all, when you've completed every item of known content, there's more to unearth in yourself and the game.

I often ran teams and taskforces before meeting Mono - never speed runs. My first LRSF with his speed channel was like riding a hot bullet into hell. I was lost and thrilled and hooked. Before, I got away with knowing the bare mimimum. Now, I have to know every aspect. His method isn't some mindless slash and dash mired in death and pre-meditated veng-baiting. You have to really -know- the taskforce requirements, every mission, every objective, every player position (team role and place to be two seconds in advance), every order, every advantage and disadvantage of everything with and outside of our control in hyperrrrrrrr speeeeeed timmmme. The fun is also in there being a new challenge every run because I don't expect first choice AT/powerset/IO builds. We compensate everytime.

In a short time, Antoinette is becoming a great influence in my work ethic. I have dozens unfinished art projects, builds and backstories. She can take a costume she loves and build a website and fashionshow around it. Her work doesn't take itself too seriously yet she puts some serious work into it. It's detailed and polished and inspiring me to pick up what I love most and continue. Where does she get her Flinstone vitamins?

For me, it would be Local Man, Mental Maden, and Enantiodromos. Edit: and Amy Amp. (knew I was forgetting someome). Not so much for guides or anything like that, but just for being sounding boards over the years on which I could bounce ideas and refine preferences.

Also, CuppaManga for helping Mac users and for being a helpful presence in the forgotten realm of the Mac forum.

Lewis

Dechs, and his ability to revive my MFing Warshade, as well as being the only other forum-going Dark Armor advocate before IO's and the buffs to the set; being a level 50 Dark/Dark Brute before Issue 9 was both glorious and infuriating; constantly hearing both ends of the spectrum ("Wow, I didn't know Dark Armor could do that"/"wtf why r u using dark armor it sux") made it an interesting ride.

For me it's mostly my real life friends since they still play this game, and thus I keep coming back to it. Other than Unicycle Peon, they don't post to the forums much.

Also, as I too am mostly interested in Controllers, some of the regular controller forum posters such as Local Man, Enantiodromos, Oedipus_Tex, MentalMaiden, and Amy Amp have been much appreciated over the years. As well as Arcanaville for doing the maths. And the drunk (and sober) posters on Pinnacle for being themselves.

Well.. Ascendant and the Liberty League back during launch... Ascendant became a great friend and someone whom I always knew I was going to have a good time with.. and taught me how to interact with all these crazy folks.

The Proletarian... mainly because he and I stuck it out for 50 levels... me blasting, and he tanking through all matter of Junk...and even today still finds time to play and have a good time in game with this old man.

Pulsewave and Snipe of Course.. back in the day the Blaster boards were a minefield but really was alot of Fun.. being able to help folks realize just how cool Elec blasters were BEFORE they became so popular!!

Snipe-Fu brought me into the Legion of Freedom, and I have been there ever since. Love the Group, from Rainbow Avenger to Falke to Karma and Tora/Music Kitty...the Community and atmosphere when an LoF team forms up.. is legendary... and thanks to folks like Fury and 2Sweets to name a few.. usually those teams mow through anything CoX could through at em.

Of course Grae Knight and all my RP friends over at the Paragonian Knights and Next Gen kept my love for RP going over all these years. thanks to both those great groups!

Thanks to all those that keep me coming back for more spandex.

Kamin Holtz and Meg A Zap, a married couple that ran the Atlas Avengers Europe super group on Pinnacle.

They were the first to take me in a newb (even though I did not live in Europe, nor do I now), and show me the finer points of the game. While I learned how to play each archetype by myself, and what costumes looked good, they were the first to help me understand all the technical stuff, and gave me a home base to ground myself. For that, I thank them.