What inspires you...

One of my biggest disappointments when I came to City of Heroes is that I couldn't create my favorite comic book heroes and play out their adventures. As a new player looking to get into a superhero game, this is one of the first things I had wanted to do.

When playing Freedom Force, I tend to make characters that are an exact copy of existing comic book characters. Not only is this a challenge and an artistic tribute, but its fun. I'm familiar with their powers and enjoy seeing them play out, just as I enjoyed reading about them in comics and watching them in cartoons. I was raised on some of these characters and enjoy seeing them in fantastical new situations. Plus, their powers and abilities are well-known to me and I enjoy finding ways to apply them and mix them.

I understand its an MMO and we can't have fourteen wolverines running around while some "professor X" toon is trying to boss them around. I understand the licensing issues. I understand the terms of service, and I play along. But it would be nice if me and my supergroup could play on our own private server and create adventures for the legendary heroes we were raised on... the characters that tend to define 'superhero' for each of us.

I'm not saying we would "only" use existing characters -- as I like the idea of making whole new characters and whole new teams. Personally, I'd like a game that was less about "creating a superhero" and more about "creating a superhero comic", choosing enemies, allies, secret identities, etc. City of Heroes is close and at least has some of those trappings, so I enjoy it a lot for now.

But I still find it so limiting that I can't make an Iron Man or a War Machine in this game. Or that I had to wait so long to unlock Angel wings despite that "Angel" is an iconic superhero character in my mind.

Knight'Hawk is actually supposed to be me if I were to live in a universe where we had superheroes. I actually started writing a little story for him not long before I started playing CoH, and the character I imagined, on the outside, would be somewhat inspired by Batman. I've started to realize that on a personal level, I'm not all the different from Spider-man. By day, I'm just an average dude, real shy and quiet, extremely nerdy, kinda clumsy, not really gifted in any one thing (except science maybe). By night (or rather by the time I get online or somewhere I'm really comfortable), I'm funny with a really bad use of puns, sarcasm, irony, and one-liners; gifted in crime fighting, use of the Force, saving the universe from Borg, Reapers, or zombies, or I'm a superstar racecar driver depending on my mood. So, there's a lot of Spider-man influence in Knight'Hawk's personality, cause I think my own personality is heavily influenced by my favorite superhero from when I was a kid (does that make me crazy or something...? ).

The name Knight'Hawk came about because "Nighthawk" was already taken....

Seriously though, in my backstory, he's Nighthawk cause 1) my lack of creativity struck and decided to name him after my favorite TV dinner and 2) I've always been a fan of the various stealth aircraft used by the USAF; specifically the F-117 Nighthawk.

That's one thing I've always loved about this game was that I don't have to "try" to RP. There is no OOC speak for me, because Knight'Hawk "is me". Other games I have to get into character, here (or CO or DCUO) I am in-character just by hitting "Log In". What puts CoH over the other two is that one of them is pretty well closed off as far as how far you can take your character's story and it's more like a vacation for me/him, the other is just really, really, corny. CoH has always seemed to take itself more seriously and it's always seemed more "believable" (sorry for the quick compare-and-contrast, but it's sorta part of the ever-continuing story for my character). That's something I hope doesn't change in this "new era of Freedom."

I hope that reads a lot better than it looks like it will. If not, sorry. It's 2 AM here, so I'll clean it up later if need be.