Happy 8 years

As the title says to Paragon Studios Happy 8 years!

I demand at least another 8

I can't even remember where I originally heard about CoH. Must've been a gaming mag or something given that the game was still in beta at the time. It was my first MMO experience, and I was such a gigantic newb when it came to MMO conventions, playstyle, and even controls. Looking back, it was almost embarrassing. My first beta character was a science-origin Dark/Dark defender named Darkwave. At some point, I switched to an Ice Armor/Battle Axe Tanker, and "tested" with him all the way to the Rikti nuking the beta server out of existence.

In the eight years since, I've played a lot of MMOs. I've seen many of them fall by the wayside for one reason or another. But CoH has thus far stood tall, and has been the only MMO I've never been able to walk away from. I guess you do always remember your first.

So here's to eight years, and more still to come (at least to the ten-year mark)!

WOOT! I am looking forward to another 8 years. This game has been with me through so much. This game and community has helped me get through a lot of rough patches in my life. I am glad that I loved superheroes so much that I was willing to pay $15 a month to become one.

I had friends trying to get me to play EQ and DAOC for months before CoX came out, and I gave the same answer every time. I will never pay to play a video game online. Wow, I was so wrong. These days I not only pay the monthly, but drop $30 for points every 2 weeks.

I really love this game. I have also enjoyed this community, I guess I should thank Statesman for that. I never would have become an active member if he had not nerfed Regen. Only good thing that came from that nerf was it made me start posting, well that was a good thing to me.

I first read about a preview of CoH from a gaming mag, PC Gamer, in their October or November 2003 issue. This was right on the heels for me after playing Freedom Force, which whet my appetite for more superhero gaming. I thought to myself, "Cool! A superhero MMO! But ugh! $15 a month? Are you kidding me? On top of my ISP costs?"

But then my June issue of PC Gamer came out, with a REVIEW of CoH. This was before I started becoming comfortable with 'surfing the web'. I didn't keep tabs on the game via the internet and now this magazine was telling me it had already launched.... almost 2 months previous! Aaaargh! I missed the boat!

So I decided the heck with the $15 subscription, I wanted to try it out. Two days later, I needed some in-game information so I signed onto the CoH boards. A week later, Issue 1 launched. 18 months later, I subscribed with a second CoH account. I was hooked.

Now I look back and think to myself, "Pfffft. $30? For all the enjoyment I've gotten from this game, that was small potatoes. What the heck was I whining about?" Now every month I'm buying points, for this or that (mostly costume bundles and powersets, but I've been wanting those storage space increases), never letting my subs lapse.

So please, Paragon Studios, keep it going! Love the game and I've enjoyed making friends here (and even visited a few).

Thank you for these last 8 years and I hope many more to come!!!!!

I heard about coh from the gamestop manager at out local one(back when it was an electronics boutique) At the time i had been primarily a console gamer, but had started getting into computers after getting one that could run modern games and having really gotten into morrowind, but i was really a big fan of phantasy star online from the dreamcast, and had been looking for a similarly fun pick up and play experience without all the long term guild/eternal grind nonsense that i had heard of from games like everquest and galaxies.

I had gotten really BAD experience with Final fantasy XI so i was pretty anti mmo at that point. I specifically did not want to play coh, despite the instance of the manager, but after reading the...subjectively accurate prima guide and finding out the game had a martial arts and katana powerset, and also after reading a thread on another forum about how good the costume creator was, I gave it a shot. Never really cared about western comics much, and even my manga selection was limited, so the superheor thing was not my thing, though I did like the all purpose nature of the genre, swords and magic coexisted with sci-fi and energy blasts. Plus, my best friend and his wife were major comics fans, so i figured that since he was an on and off galaxies player(i had tried it too, it was ok, but not a major connection) they might give it a go. so, got it 7 and 10/12ths years a go and there i was.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Heard about CoH on the XPlay show, while it was in beta. One thing stuck out in my head "These people got the feel of flying right". I started searching for ways to get into the beta, got in a bit before it launched. And they were right.

I first heard about City of Heroes when they had those ads in comics (Marvel or DC, don't remember) at the time of launch. Was not into videogames at the time (still am not - I only play CoH and freecell...) so I said to myself "cool!" and I turned the page.

A year or so later, I saw the DVD Collector's edition in a sales bin at the local electronic store, so, since I was getting the game and 1 month free for less than the cost of the month's subscription (I'm a cheap-*** *******, so sue me...), I decided to give it a try.

Been a subscriber ever since...

I was walking around Sam's Club when I saw a dual pack of City of Heroes/City of Villains. I had never played an MMO before and was looking for something new to play. Took it home and installed it. Rolled up a MA/Regen scrapper and never looked back. Happy 8th CoH!

Gamestop, while looking to see if there were any of the older CRPGs I missed.

Decided to take the plunge when I got a computer than can run it.

Today . . . LOL there isn't any computer I have/can get/could get that would have an issue running COH.

Though I still want one that can run ultra mode.

Looking forward to another 8+ years.

GRATZ!

I remembering seeing it in the store around launch and passing it by (I was a heavy EQ gamer).

For some reason (And I still don't know why to this day), I just assumed it was an MMO sequel to Freedom Force.

Fast forward to April 2005. Due to financial reasons, I practically gave up console gaming and needed an inexpensive replacement (At the time, I was spending over $300 a month on games). EBGames was running a special: City of Heroes (or the Collector's Edition) for $19.99 and they'd toss in a free copy of Lineage II.

My usual store only had the regular edition, so I had them call another store and hold the CE at one down the road. Picked it up and the rest was history.

Bought City of Villains at launch then relapsed for...5 years.

Came back in March 2010 due a reactivation weekend and the upcoming release of Going Rogue. Bought my wife her first account about a week later. And we've been here ever since.

Good lord...

Has it been 8 years already? Have to say, I am mighty proud to have been along for the entire ride. I remember the early days with Emmert and damn have we come a long way.

Very happy to say I still LOVE the game, love the team that is working on the game and love the community as much as I did when we all got together in 04. Here is to another 8 years gang and happy anniversary!

I used to carpool with a buddy who's an MMO butterfly. He and several other friends (all of whom were buddies from college who I also played P&P RPGs with) were in CoH's beta.

I played on-line FPS games, and was not at all into MMOs. A big part of why was that MMO versions of PvP which were prevalent at the time - mixing PvE and PvP - turned me off big time. PvP was fine with me - non-consensual PvP when trying to grind levels, not so much. The idea of being defeated and looted? I was never going to pay someone for that "opportunity".

Of course, CoH didn't have PvP at all at release, but that didn't attract me to it - it just meant that CoH wasn't actively distasteful to me in ways that other MMOs usually were. But my carpool buddy's descriptions of things like the core ATs, travel powers, and the FPS-like mobility characters enjoyed? That attracted me. I wasn't what I consider a serious comic book geek, but I did read lots of comics in the 80s and 90s, so the genre did attract me.

Because of those friends, I pre-ordered and got into the head-start. We pulled in some other friends from my FPS world plus one of my best real-life friends (who also still plays). While most of those other players have moved on (many being gaming butterflies, as mentioned), the experiences I had with them anchored me here for the long run.

In FPS games, my avatar was a digital representation of me. Eventually, in CoH, I learned to create characters who were not supposed to be me. They were comic-book (ish) characters of my creation who lived in the game world. The brilliant simplicity of a free-form "Description" field for our characters combined with the flexibility of the costume generator let me make characters who I could feel were wholly my own. And that let me develop an attachment to them that no "pure" FPS can offer. And that ability to grow attached to characters has kept me here for the better part of a decade.

Hats off to Cryptic for lighting the torch and Paragon for carrying it high.

I had been reading about CoH in PC Gamer, but I wasn't going to pay for a game and on top of it a monthly fee. Then my roommate, at the time, was getting burnt out on the MMO he was playing and wanted something different from fantasy. Since I was the reader of the house, I told him about CoH and he picked it up, we played the game during the month trial and I was hooked. Got my own copy of the game, deleted my main on his account, it was only level 14-flying did it for me-and the rest was history.

First time I heard of City of Heroes? One of the longtime players here (dunno if he'd want me dropping his name, so I won't) used to make mods for another game I played, and I started reading his blog. One day he mentioned an MMO where you get to play superhero type characters. I was like *jaw drop* seriously?!? Now this I gotta check out. Two days into the trial I subscribed, and I've been here just over three years now... guess I owe that dude a coke. Thanks for the heads up on it man!

And Paragon? Happy eighth you crazy kids!

/e throwconfetti
/e fireworksbloom