What was so special about City of Heroes?

I have thought this so much over the last 8 years. With the game coming to a close, I guess I just want to say this here where others may actually understand what the **** I’m talking about.

What was so special about this game? What made this game unique?

Was it the active combat? Was it the instances? Was it the costume creator?

It was a bit of all, but I think what REALLY made this game unique was that it never made you feel you were “grinding up” to level 50. Instead, you felt you were “creating” a hero. All of those that ever read a comic and wanted to create a super hero, or villain, but didn’t have the time, talent or money to create a comic/book/movie/etc was just able to create their idea in the game.

We didn’t just made characters… we created heroes. We didn’t just grind them, we envisioned a fantastic and dangerous world from our creation’s eyes.

In other MMOs, you are just one of many adventurers in a quest for power. Here, here we created and then stepped into the shoes of those creations.

City of Heroes: I will miss you so fcking much.

PS: If anyone wants to keep in touch with me, send me a PM and I'll share my contact information.

If anyone in the Maryland-Reiserstown area, let me know and maybe we can make a small party or something.

I don't know the answer. I had never played an MMO before, City of Heroes was the first. I immediately loved it, and thought, "Wow, what have I been missing out on? I have to play all games in this genre!"

A World of Warcraft, Champions Online, Rift, DC Universe Online, and Guild Wars later, I realize that I don't like MMOs. They're just awful.

But I love City of Heroes. It was truly a unique experience that tapped into 'lil ChrisMoses' brain and allowed him to pull a hero out of it.

It's quite a thing.

I'm in Columbia, Maryland. I sent an email to your facebook address, Starsman

This game was great because:

1. You could play it on any computer.
2. You didn't need that much bandwidth, only 10kpbs
3. The powers were just awesome...
4. The game was not about a cash store...
5. Easy teaming...
6. I'm going to miss the characters...Lord Recluse, Desdemona, that traitor Manticore, and the Liberty girls(Primal/Praetorian)...
7. Finally, the character creator...

I guess MY BIG question is where is everyone going next for gaming?

This was my first MMO and I tried others but I kept coming back to game.

Unless I hear what future plans are, I'll probably stop playing MMOs. Playing other games will just create frustration in my opinion since none play like COH.

The ease of teaming and the sense of community did it for me.

Im not going to any other game, there is a thread going on with people listing where they plan to go next.

I already tried the other 2 super hero MMOs out there. Neither clicked on me. I'll just spend some time making my own games.

For me it was always the community. Plus the diverse amount of content over time was awesome. Also the devs almost always interacting with players so that we didn't feel like it was a dictatorship.

You could be really, freakishly OP and the Devs were mostly ok with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starsman Im not going to any other game, there is a thread going on with people listing where they plan to go next. I already tried the other 2 super hero MMOs out there. Neither clicked on me. I'll just spend some time making my own games.

I am going to try both of the others...and I'll gladly sub to any of yours Stars, you have a fantastic head for numbers.

I'm talking from a solo'ing perspective, but one big difference is that this game tells YOUR character's story. Every other MMO I've played sets your story in place from the beginning, and you're never anybody significant. You're the latest human mage fighting against the orcs or you're a Jedi padawan preparing to take on the Sith and so on. You're always just one more soldier in a war of some sort. This game didn't do that with its missions. When you talk to Detective Habashy, he doesn't welcome you with "alright you maggot, get out there on the front lines," he immediately respects your character as a hero and asks for your help. The NPC's all treat your character as the only one they're dealing with, not as another grunt, and the stories are all flexible enough, and focused away from your character enough, to accommodate any background. So the game becomes the story of each character's growth from wherever you started them. A brash and attention-seeking heroine gets mixed up in the lives of everyone from Penelope Yin to Percy Winkley and begins to grow into a more compassionate character who truly wants to help people. A vengeful ghost gradually reconnects with her humanity as she makes friends with her contacts and a newly bonded Warshade tries to find his place in the world and what he truly believes is worth fighting and dying for. All these characters and stories came to life for me because the game's lore made room for all of them, without ever stepping in the way of anyone's motives. The game's population might be huge, and we might be living in a whole city of heroes, but the story always treated your character with respect: the game's story was your character's story, and you always felt like the main character. No other MMO I've seen has even tried to do that, and, once CoH is gone, I'm afraid none others ever will.

that is a very interesting question. CoH was my first MMO and it's far outlived my time on WoW, Champions, DC Universe, STO and SW:TOR.

Maybe it's the creative freedom in character design or the fun combat, but if it's anything it's always been the people and I doubt I'll ever find a better bunch on any other game.

I think they knew this game was ending. I had never ever seen this game go 30+ days with no patching..I had plans to bring it up on today's freedom talk but...

Sidekick system, which still hasn't been looked at by most games (whereas it should be an industry standard by now!).

Fast travel and movement. No timesink having to talk to Whatshisface to get quests.

Customization.

Loot and power system complex enough no single option could be determined as the absolute best.

Too many answers...

From an MMO standpoint? Arcanaville said it at one point - they made mistakes. They happened to make some very fortuitous mistakes that made this game so incredibly different from everything else.

I mean, how many MMOs out there generally start out assuming you're equal to at least three minions? My blasters, Khelds, etc. can spend time clearing Perez Park's streets at low level without dying (much.)

Other MMOs? You're 1v1 without a team, most times. 2v1 maybe - but things may be dicey. 3, 4, 5, 6? Not unless you're talking absolutely minimum enemies - a few mice or something.

COH decided to forego set classes. Yes, we have ATs, but an Ice blaster is nothing like a Fire blaster. Other MMOs may dual class or have something else akin to primary/secondary - but COH really let you mix things up. My Fire tank plays far, far differently from my Stone tank. My Energy/Energy brute was a "heavy Stalker" back in the day, whereas other brutes could be tanks. Other games, a Cleric is a Cleric, a Healer is a Healer, they're pretty freaking interchangeable...

But you still "need" to have one of each to do anything, where COH, you don't.

Plus on COH, my characters are *mine.* My look isn't my look until I get my first piece or two of upgraded gear. My look can stay the same from 1-50. I can use it to define who I am. My "gear" doesn't show - an dif it does, as far as a weapon, its look is purely FOR looks, and has no impact on how it performs.

I can solo from 1-50. I don't need to partake in raids. I don't need a holy trinity to survive, or get roped into an encounter with Elites or something.

I don't need to pay to train. That was just... irritating. I can understand paying for a way-off-the-wall skill - say, a Tanker who wants to learn to use some Ice Blast powers having to pay for learning and improving the powers, I could understand that. But the games that have you pay to train? That turns the game from "Playing for fun" into "Grind and work" very, very fast for me. Annoyed me in Aion. Annoyed me in TOR.

Speed - we can travel. We can fly - literally. No "Move at a slightly brisk walk for 30 levels, and your mission is 50 miles away."

No competition for resources. Nobody's gathered around trying to get 10 Wild Mouse Nose-hairs and 10 Muskrat Testicles in a 30 foot by 30 foot area. You need info, you kill 10 hellions... doesn't matter which 10, and they're *easy* to find.

Yes, sidekicking and teaming. TOR annoyed me there - "OK, um... I'm 10 levels under my friend, it'll take me 20 minutes to get to my ship and get to that planet then find them... oh, then they can do the same for me next week." Here, it's get together and go kick butt.

There's just so much that COH does differently... and that's not even getting into the *community.*

I haven't lasted a year in any other MMO. 7 years and change, with multiple accounts, here.

See my Guides and Tutorials

For me, it comes to a few things, which I'll arrange in the order I discovered them in.

1. This is the ONLY MMO I've ever played which isn't annoying and doesn't constantly get in my face. City of Heroes just let me play, though be it play wrongly, and simply have fun without trying to be a doting mother and try to smother me with all manner of superficial attention-grabbing gimmicks. Even in the times when I burned out, I could still play this game because almost nothing it did pissed me off, simply because it never really demanded that I do something.

2. This is the ONLY MMO I've ever played which allowed for so much creative freedom of expression. Hell, this is the only GAME I've ever played whose very design inspired me to think, imagine and create. The costume creator is a large part, yes, as is the "Description" field, but in reality, it's the "anything goes" fictional world that did the most good. City of Heroes gave me the tools with which to make my imagination real, and that is something no game has ever been able to match. The characters I made here are mine and mine alone. Nobody gave them to me. I made them, I dreamt them up, and I will take them with me. No game I have ever played can boast about this.

3. This is the ONLY MMO I've ever played which allowed me to feel "super." I've tried a lot of others, and in all of them every fight is intended to be a "challenge." I have to struggle to beat down even a single trash critter, and anything meaningful I'd have to do with a whole throng of people. Not here. Here, I could look after myself. When a villain told me "I will kills you!" I stoop up and replied "I would love to see you try!" MMOs worry too much about class balance and enforcing teaming and balancing challenge, to the point where I can never feel like I'm better than most of my enemies, and I could here.

The MMO market right now is in a sad state. Sadder than I've ever seen it, in fact. MMOs are finally starting to evolve and developers are warking up to the need for MMOs to change if they want to stay current. And yet what do we see? The same story told over and over again in the same settings with the same mechanics, just with gimmicks thrown in to make it harder to understand. I think it's time MMOs got out of the forest and stopped compulsively including a Ranger class by another name and did something unique like what City of Heroes did. That's the only way I see for the market to survive.

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.

1. The powersets
2. The quality of animation(can't get used to WoW or CO's models or movement)
3. The wonderful zones
4. The size of the instanced map(at least compared to CO where it was awful).
5. Best movement powers of any game
6. Taking on large groups solo, something I can't do in other games
7. Bases
8. Invention system that is not a kludge

man, so many because I can't think right now but I will just say that everytime when I went to other games like Rift, Tera, WoW, CO, etc, there was just something about combat, crafting or movement that irked me and I went back to CoH.

To me, this game is like the movie Tropic Thunder.

On paper, Tropic Thunder is a stupid, insulting, predictable, movie with a cast of actors that shouldn't share a plane ride much less screen time.

In actuality, its crazy-broken in all the right ways. City of Heroes was crazy-broken in so many right ways. Robert Downey Jr. in black face is not supposed to be funny. Its hilarious. 400% recharge is not supposed to be possible. Its ridiculously fun.

My fondest memories of this game involve things that not only don't happen in other MMOs, not only can't happen in other MMOs, but would probably get people fired in other MMOs for letting it happen. There, its unbalanced. Here, its Wednesday.

A lot of people think I wanted a numerically constrained game. A "balanced" game in the same manner other MMOs are balanced. But that was never true. I only advocated having the quantitative precision to hit the target the devs aimed for. I never specifically said what that target should be most of the time. What I always wanted was to preserve and protect that crazy-fun, by making sure it stayed within the tolerance of the devs so they *wouldn't* have to curtail that crazy-fun.

In other words, I didn't want to ban alcohol at the party, I only wanted a designated driver. And I think this game sometimes deliberately and sometimes accidentally tended to do that: to let us have our fun within limits, rather than dictate the precise performance everyone was supposed to have. The players didn't always agree with the devs when they placed limits on that, but the devs did consistently give us a very wide playground to play in.

I agree with you guys.

What was so special about this game is what brought me back after I "left permanently" 3x. I left for other mmos and kept thinking, "yeah I like this aspect of the new one I'm playing, but..." I will miss the way COH encourages you, and allows you, to team with people any level in the game for most of the mishes.

Almost all the MMO's out today discourage teaming. The XP bonus on COX for teams, and allowing different levels should be widespread. How many times on other mmo's do you have to keep searching for one other dude who can help with a quest, because you have to be the same level or both have it for it to be worth your time?

I spent so much time on the character creator, making at least 75 toons on two servers and 2 accounts. I don't have this kind of alt-itis on other mmo's.

I have enjoyed the ride since 2005. Farewell everyone!

-BurnSucka
"Melt 'em like butters!"

The teaming tools - sidekicking/exemplaring, global channels, the team-up teleporter, the LFG channel. City has always made it simple to hook up with your friends or even complete strangers. No other MMO I've tried as done it as well.

Character customization - the costume creator, varies powerset selections, customizable powers. You may not be able to make everything you can think off, but you can make a lot of it. Again far more than in most MMOs I've tried.

The Community - beats me how this one came about, maybe its just the kind of folks who chose to play superheroes (except I've been in both the CO and DCUO betas and that ain't it). But for whatever reason this game has an awesome community. If you have a problem shouting out in Broadcast will usually get you the answer you need - even in Atlas Park. These forums are unusually civil compared to others I'm lurked in, our "flame wars" would be most forums average Tuesday.

The Devs - our Dev team has a history of being really open with the player base. They listen and more importantly they talk to us - about what they want to do, what they can't do, and above all why. Its nice to be treated like an adult and not an annoying distraction. And their passion for improving the game always showed through, even if you didn't like their decisions you had to acknowledge they were doing what they thought was best for the game.

Did somebody else fell in love with someone in CoH? I know I did!

For me, it was my first MMO. What was special was the wonderful friends that I made back in 2005, when I moved from my beloved Freedom to the newly opened EU servers. I even participated in a IRL meeting, and that was great seeing them all! They're long gone, I took many breaks from the game, but I kept coming back, mainly for nostalgia sake, I confess. What was special? The people I had fun with made this game special. I can't help but thinking of the human part, when I think of CoH. It's a great game, but, look, it's even bigger on the inside.

I learned many things in that game, and will kept fond memories of the social aspect of it. There will be a void.