Sharing a bit of Old School CoH

So I fancied a change today and decided to run my lvl 10 StJ/SR brute around the Hollows a bit. I sent a few tells to invite people and ended up duoing with a PB... so we did most of the Wincott arc and then moved on to Flux.

It was very cool and a lot of fun and we completed the whole thing including Frostfire in well under two hours. Very enjoyable and more than a bit nostalgic, and a handly little duo.

What struck me most were two things: How empty the Hollows was and why is this great content now not played any more (I know why, curse you AE and DFB) and how much easier it was than when I started. I'm a long time vet I know, damn near six years but to do that in the old days at level 10/12 with only two characters would've been a feat for the annals of CoH.

There are plenty of good reasons why that should be so... there's so much to do the time sinks have been removed - rightly so - I reckon Frostie is good for a speed run these days.

Now you kids get off my lawn!!!

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

My friend and I were recently working on the Croatoa arcs. That was a bit of nostalgia there too. I haven't run them in quite a while. I was shocked when we held off the Fir Bolg in the mission "Keep 30 Fir Bolg from escaping".

Yeah, I kind of despise DFB. I think it's made it harder to find a team in the teens even. It seems as though a lot of people at DFBing 1-20/22 then heading to Talos. Heck, I even miss running radio and bank missions.

Yeah I understand why it exists, but in general it's a good thing - it makes the game more populous, and does provide a genuine alterntive to the low levels and AH but doesn't do much for those who don't wanna run it on the low levels

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I recently played the Hollows again on a toon I was leveling up. I think what really made people hate the Hollows back in the day was the nature of the zone and the lack of travel powers until you hit level 14. It's much more tolerable nowadays.

I'm currently playing with a new Warshade and as he's level locked at 22 due to being part of an RP levelling team, I've been spending time running everything around and below that level. There's some fun arcs back there which are all too often ignored these days. After the Hollows (including the Trial which is still fun, even now) next best was the Vahzilok Wasting Disease. That final encounter with Dr Vahzilok is still awesome.

Something I have noticed though, is that the Contact Finder we now have only seems to point you to Wincott, Faultline or Montague Castenella under level 20 which maybe why some of these arcs get ignored. It seems odd, but it's almost as if the designers of the tool were trying to steer people away from older arcs (Hollows excepted) and towards newer content. Is that just me being all cynical and grumpy though?

The Hollows!

My first character ever was a Fire/Fire Blaster. After terrorising the criminals of Atlas Park I got directed to the Hollows, and nearly quit the game. It suddenly seemed to jump from manageable encounters to taking on groups of ten trolls (including bosses) at once, and thus dying repeatedly.
I was so relieved to discover Kings Row.

It is one of those cool arcs, along with Striga, Croatoa and Faultline, that tend to get forgotten about. It's always cool to run one of these after a long break. But I do miss the old ultra-hard Hollows, in a kind of perverse way.

I get nostalgic for the epic feel of the first couple of times I ran the Caves of Atta on eight-man teams. The huge numbers of Trolls and the desperate struggle with each group because apparently we were all newbs that were unfamiliar on the best usage of our powers.

The first couple of Frostfire runs were also epic in their scope and feel.

I do NOT miss having to run to and up that big hill across the Gulch or having to run back from the Atlas hospital and that sort of thing, though. Time has marched on for the better in that regard!

I learned well how to run around without travel powers in the Hollows. Where everyone else was asking for Taxibots or "TP meh!" was shouted everywhere, I, with my lowly level 5 (or better yet, a 1!) was intentionally running across the deepest parts of the Hollows, for practice. Because it helped in the rest of the game to know how to avoid everything else... especially in Perez, at the time, dang those groups..

It also helped in my 'dexterity' at knowing how and when to jump over obsticles, how to map out where to run to... My fav is going from Cherry Hills to the transmission tower, right through the lowest part and back up again... all without dyin', or even gettin' hit.

I still go there an intentionally and visit. Just to see what's happening... which isn't all that much, true.

I take all my toons through The Hollows, all contacts to open up Karsis for CoT trial (disabling XP earning of course). Last time I was there I got invited to a Wincott arc and 2 Flux arcs - 2 weeks ago. While there I saw dozens of players coming and going so it didn't appear dead to me (Freedom). The whole zone is very repeatable which is why I do.

There is so much excellent content going unseen by new players because of the rush to get to the end thereby skipping the game.

I did the hollows with a character a month or so ago and it was fun.

It occurred to me that the devs should have a zone of the week, like tf of the week.

The zone content that week would have double xp, double drops, or something.

You could do hollows, striga, faultline, the PvP zones and others. Rotate them around so they would be busy for one week every few months

Every once in a while, I feel that irresistible pull towards the Hollows. Many a good time was had back in the day working my way from Wincott up to Frostfire. I fondly remember team after team recruiting to take another turn through the slippery floors of his frosty lair. I hope the Devs refocus on getting people to play the lower end content again rather than DFB and their recent "single minded obsession" towards "end game" content. Maybe they need to be reminded that more often than not it's the journey, not just the destination.

I may have to give it another try now that there's easier access to travel powers...but back when it was introduced, I HATED the Hollows. It got to the point where I'd join teams, then immediately quit when I found out they were running that zone. I hated having to run all the way there just to clear the "talk to Wincott" from my missions so that I could get back to the action. When I did run the zone...it was a pain in the butt to get around, and I got bored with the missions quickly. I'm still not sure I need to take on Frostfire again.

On the plus side, it was one of the most popular zones for Taxibots. I miss them.

I still hit up the Hollows on all my alts. It's pretty much my favorite zone in the game. It really does suck though to see how dead it is thanks to the Sewer Trial.

Hollows was my preferred patrol ground on my PCSAR toon. No reason to do so these days sadly.

I suppose it's a good thing, not to have Heroes falling over dead left and right, but still... Man, those were the days!

Remember when we used to do Katie Hannon TFs for our IO jollies?

The Hollows for me was always a great baptism of fire for learning things such as aggro ranges and just how many flaming rocks can be hurled at a Blaster before they fall over.

Although the Hollows is more accessible now thanks to the reorganisation, I miss the huge mobs, the long journeys and what's more, the fear. It really felt like a dangerous zone and either the cries of 'Ooog' filling the side of your screen or the sound of a Gardvord powering up his Temp Invulnerability was enough to make you panic and desperately try to run faster.

Old Hollows actually felt like the definition of Hazard Zone. Alas neither it nor any of the others in game do these days.

I run content of all "ages" all the time, so I really have very little nostalgia about any of it. As such, I feel the same way about the Hollows, Striga and Croatoa now as I did back when they were new - I hate those places. Their stories don't exist, replaced by a series of unrelated events and boring hunts, and they culminate in a Trial or TF that I can't do by myself and I'm not about to start recruiting for one when I get to it. Yes, I realise old contacts had a lot of one-shot missions, but at least they had a story in addition to those. Hollows, Striga and Croatoa contacts do not.

As for the rest of the old content, I actually like it. Considering how often I find myself doing an impression of the Spoony One and yelling "Wrestle! Wresaaaaal!" at my screen when being led from dialogue to dialogue to dialogue in newer content, it's soothing to go back to the older missions which give you a briefing and send you off to fight stuff without interruption. Sure, the writing on them isn't very good on a technical level, but the stories they tell are remarkable nevertheless, because they tie together into the grand tapestry of a persistent world, something newer content just can't seem to manage. Yeah, it's consistent between Issues... Sometimes, but it's not consistent with the broader canon of the game.

I enjoy the many nameless, model-swap contacts throughout the city and the stories they tell just because they aren't beating me over the head with writing trying too hard to be memorable. Like the city around them, they all blend together into one giant mass of background information, providing the perfect backdrop for me to develop my own character and pretend that character is the star of his own story. For that, I'll keep running their content in the foreseeable future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Funny I don't see anyone mentioning the old hydra hunting teams in Perez Park back in the day.

May the old Positron TF rest in peace, it was a major pain for that level range back in the day

Maybe its just me, but I don't see many respec trials being done anymore, they used to be kind of epic in a way

and OMG the original Hami raids, they were much more fun as well, kind of like how the Rikti raids are now, the problem with the new hami raid, its a bit complicated for an encounter involving large groups to be on the same page, the new itrials for the most part haven't repeated the mistake there.

The old hearding wolf teams where some tanker would heard the entire map were also nice in their own way