My Adventure to Level 20

Hello People of Virtue,

So a little background first. When I was in college I played COH constantly on the Pinnacle server. I was in a SG mostly with others in my college and I had several level 50 characters. After COV hit most people on the server migrated to that side (at least temporarily) and later to PVP areas. Most of my SG mates left for other MMO's around this time because of game changes and a hatred of PVP. I had no interest in being a villain so it became very difficult to find teams and I ended up stopping playing around issue 7. A few weeks ago I went to the going out of business sale of the local Borders and found copies of City of Villains and game cards amongst the other items and I decided to come back to the game. Before anyone asks I have no idea why a book store had software but based on the age of the items they had been hiding in a warehouse for a while.

So anyway I came back to the game and its even better than I remember. I chose Virtue because its a lot more populated than my old server so I wouldn't have any problems finding teams. Unfortunately I came a few days before the freedom change hit and I've had the worst luck with teams because of it. Right now I'm trying to level a time/sonic defender and so far I've been kicked off two teams because I wasn't a good enough "healer". At one point a blaster jumped directly into a large mob yelling "HEELZ!!" and then kicked me out after he and the rest of us died shortly after. On top of that most of the teams I've been on have had people comparing this game to WOW or complaining about how free players didn't have access to everything. My favorite incident was this weekend when I joined a team and was kicked off when I mentioned I was a bit rusty because I hadn't played for a while they assumed I was a free/premium player and went off on me about how free players like me are scum and are destroying the game. Not every team I've been on has been bad and its gotten a lot better since level 18 or so but that was my experience getting this far.

Okay, this is more than just a lengthy rant I swear. As I said I'm very out of date and have no clue what's going on half the time plus I'm a little rusty on how to play so I would like some help as a returning player and I have some stupid questions for the super nice people of the forum here.
• First, where can I find a decent SG that would be willing to take a semi-noob like me. I know there's a thread on the forum for SG recruitment but I think most of them stopped accepting applicants with the recent influx of new people. I tried going to Atlas Park but the only SG's I found that were recruited just wanted someone with VIP status so I could pay their base rent.
• What are the best websites for game and badge information now? I tried googling it and there are a lot of websites including several wiki's dedicated to COH so I don't know what's the best and most up to date.
• Is the Pocket D just a replacement for the old Dance Party zone where you can talk and have fun or is there more to it? I'm just asking because there seems to be a lot of the map for the zone than what I have access to. On a related note does Virtue really have its own radio station?
• Other than Hami Raids are there ever giant monster hunts? I've been in zones lots of times now when they appear and everyone just seems to ignore them.

First, I'd like to say welcome back! Second, I want to take this time to ensure you we're not all elitist snobs. Feel free to drop me a line if you need help or have any general questions. My global is @Silver Tooth.

Onto some of your questions!

Paragonwiki.com is a great site for general CoH info. I also use badge-hunter.com for everything concerning badges.

Pocket D has indeed replaced the Dance Party. If you have access to Praetoria then you can also visit Studio 55. The Cape Radio is native to virtue, drop by the D any night and you can usually spot a DJ or three. The Pocket D is also home to the Ski Chalet that opens for the winter event each year, and is very awesome.

Occasionally you can find giant monster hunts. With the addition of the zone event message channel many more people have the badges they give, so demand to take monsters down has decreased slightly. In addition to Hami raiding (which has been revamped in your absence), we now have Rikti Mothership raiding and several random zone events.

Hope that helped a little.

Unless I'm mistaken, and something changed while I wasn't looking, you have to have VIP status to join an SG, actually. People aren't trying to exploit you for your potential earning power - well, I guess they might be - but those are just the rules of the game as it stands now.

Sorry that you've had some rotten teaming experiences so far. Things will calm down in due time, but a lot of people are in a bad mood over this 'free players' thing, and thus want to blame all the game's ills on it. It'll pass.

If you've spent any money at all, I believe you are able to join an SG.

VIP status is only required to create SGs, which would involve base construction and so forth. The issue many folks have is why the staff decided to involve paying base dues as part of "base construction"

Anyway, welcome to Virtue.

I'd recommend rechecking out the SG thread. Even if some stopped accepting applicants, others have not.

Welcome back to the game.

Premium is all you need to join an SG.

Most of your questions were answered but:
1. There are a bunch of supergroups out there that you could join that would be willing to take a newb. The only thing is that with Virtue you kinda have to decide if you want to deal with a bunch of Roleplayers or not. There are groups out there that are strictly casual groups with no emphasis on roleplay but for every one of those groups there's at least four that are roleplay sgs. My suggestion is to look at the Supergroup Registry that's stickied at the top of the page. People post ads for their supergroup with any information that you might want including ways to contact them.

As for the giant monsters, there a couple of things you could do concerning this. Most of the end game content is raids and tfs and stuff like that, usually on this forum people will post scheduled raids that you can be a part of. Just be on the lookout for those kinds of posts. If you're just looking for giant monsters like Lusca or whomever then I suggest looking at the global channels in game and seeing if you can't find a raid or team oriented channel. I find that's the best way to get the attention of players when I want to do something.

I would like to apologize for your horrible experiences with teams so far. I recently came back after a long hiatus and was welcomed warmly so it's mind boggling that you found every last evil person on Virtue. I promise that Virtue is jam packed with the kindest people in Paragon.

It looks like all your other questions have been answered so i'll just say Welcome Back and I hope you enjoy the changes.

Oh yeah, I'm new to the game and this is the warmest welcome I've ever gotten to an MMO.

Wow. Be sure to click those jerk players, hit 'Add Note' and one-star them for future avoidance. Sorry to hear about that, man D:

Welcome to Virtue, sorry to hear about your bad experiances. And wow, I haven't heard the healer comment in ages

Welcome to Virtue. So you sobered up and wanna RP? Hope you enjoy your stay and play much more. Hopefully the newness won't wear thin and you find a lovely SG to join.

Welcome back to the game! And welcome new players as well.

Shame you have hit the bad players so shortly in. Players that think you need 'HEALER' for a team are not good to play with. If I led a team, I'd rather take you even without the 'healer' factor due to the other things you bring to the table. Teams that kick you for being premium/free are also AWFUL. If they hate playing with free players they should go to Exalted. I'd rather play with a free player than one who hates the fact the game is free. Only thing I'd like if they could implement is that if you're trying to do content that you need to pay for, such as signature story arcs, that when trying to start the content it'd tell you who does not have access to it. Beyond that, I like to team with free players

It's funny, lately I have been finding great teams. Ran a Citadel with all Trollers and Corruptors, and we breezed it. Ran a TF with all melee, one spider (can't remember) and me, a blaster, oh, and we did Hess and Moonfire in 1.5 hours combined. There are good players and good teams out there. Bad string of luck.

Welcome back.

Dang brah. That is total crap. Im sorry your game experience has been like that. If you ever roll another toon or want a good group of people to team with hit me up sometime.

@Robby Rush.

But welcome back! its an exciting time.