How has this game changed your life?

I will start.

I used to run an SG on Virtue a long time ago now. It's since faded into memory, but one of the people I met there ended up becoming my best friend. Eventually, we started talking on the phone. Then, we started playing other games together. Ultimately, I moved in with him when I had nowhere else to go. We no longer live together, but we spend every day, all day, chatting it up on mumble and playing games together.

He's the best friend I could ever hope to have, and without this game, I would never have met him.

Filled my longtime superhero fantasy fix in a way no other has and doubt will.

I met so many nice people on the in game chats. People I have talked to daily for years. That is really what I am going to miss the most.

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft.

I got my foot in the door for internet radio with City of heroes, I got into MMO's due to City of Heroes, I met my current partner via City of Heroes....

Hell, CoX opened a *lot* of doors for me.

Posted mine here...

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=295802

Way back in 2004, I joined an SG on Virtue to RP. Unfortunately, like many RP SGs/guilds, it was very cliquey. The game was pretty darn hard back then and I mostly ran defenders, so I was super squishy, and I could not get anyone to team with me. I was starting to run out of hope, since I couldn't play when my boyfriend wasn't around to team with.

Then one person in the SG said "oh, sure, I'll send you an invite!" He was a Dark/Dark scrapper, and sort of squishy himself, since this was long before stacking armors and he was constantly out of blue. He sidekicked me and we had a blast. We started RPing together, and eventually, made new duos together specifically to RP together.

When EQ2 came out, the whole SG left for it - including him. I was completely devastated. And then he came back - because he missed me.

We played WoW together for about 3 years (when TBC ruined it, but I digress...) and then LOTRO, some Warhammer, some DDO, some SWTOR. We're playing GW2 together now. It's been almost 8 years, and the teenager who was kind enough to RP and group with me is now a man graduated from college, but we still play together every single day. We've only met in person once, but aside from my husband, he's my best friend in the world.

We've populated whole worlds of RP together. And despite our forays elsewhere, CoH was always our home base, and we never strayed far for very long. Hearing it's shutting down is like a kick in the gut, like seeing the big old oak tree you built a treehouse with you best friend in getting chopped down. But I got an amazing friendship out of it, and I'll always treasure COH for that.

Aside from taking a lot of my money.... even indirectly, through things like PC upgrades and art...

I met some good people throughout the game. We've become, in some instances, actual, real life friends.

When the... situation around the divorce came up, one of them - despite a bad situation with her husband - offered to open her home to me to crashf or a bit. Didn't happen, but the offer was there - and she was one of the people who insisted I check in as I drove cross country. I don't remember the drive... I do remember the calls. And hearing that the person I was calling was getting pestered for news from her.

Found I couldn't deal with my family right then - so another friend opened his door. Lived with him for a few months while I tried to get settled in, start my life up again, etc.

I don't think, emotionally, self-confidence wise, etc. I would have made it through that divorce without them, and several other SG mates and friends.

Since then, I've celebrated - long distance - the birth of children. I've stood at weddings. I've basically... had my life enriched by the people I never would have met without this game.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I've always been a big fan of superhero media. Comics, cartoons, movies, it all drew my attention. Previously when I played games, it was always a set character or even one with no personality. I used to play FPS games, adventure games, puzzle games, but RPGs just seemed too slow for me.

I got this game around launch and believe it or not, this was the first game I played where you could make your character with any semblance of originality. My first costume was awful- Ring shoulders, brownish-purple tank top, metal pants, shoes, power gloves, the bandana hair style, all of it was shoddy. On top of which I didn't know you could unlink colours so the whole costume looked terrible. Only thing that ever held over on that character was the goggles I picked.

This taught me to be more creative. Eventually, I ended up with a costume I still use to this day, switching out details as new pieces come in but still sticking with the general theme. I even recreated that first bad costume but with unlinked colours and more makeshift items, explaining it away as his first costume.

And that's when it comes to the most important part- RP. I'd never even heard of roleplaying before this game, at least the kind on the forums. When I heard it was basically making your character part of a story (as I read a lot of books especially back then), I was excited. I was also awful, and made so many mistakes it's a little embarrassing to think about. But I was a kid back then, 12-13.

As I continued making very obvious mistakes, the people I was playing with were kind enough to correct me and give me advice. One in particular gave a lot of advice on grammar and spelling that I was making mistakes on. Most of what I learned from roleplaying here on the forums and in-game was unique character development and arcs. I left the forums, but the character I continued developing.

From that, I began simply writing characters out. Making stories based around these characters, giving them purposes and goals and histories. Once I was done with one character, I'd move on to the next. I kept having people critique this to refine my writing skills.

I'm going to a tech university now. Game development. I plan to focus primarily on being a games writer.

If not for CoH, I never would have gone this way. Thank you, Paragon Studios.

I've played this game for eight years...EIGHT YEARS. Never in my life would I think a hobby could enthrall me as this one has. And now I know no other game will be as interesting or have the longevity of appeal this one did.

Met some great people here and made a lifelong friend...what more can one ask for?

Oh sweet Hera, where do I start...?


Chicago, April 2004: I was hanging with a trick turned good friend who just started playing this game called City of Heroes. I watched him work the character creator over his shoulder and instantly became hooked. I waited two weeks for my next paycheck then bought in immediately. The first tool I rolled was a voudoun earth controller called Doctor Kananga. The second was a very kink-friendly superhero in glossy black and yellow tights called Rubberlad...

Later that year I started running with the Rough Trade crew on Victory (back when Wire was still in charge). Made a bunch of great new friends, eventually took over Rough Trade from Wire (who was leaving the game). And carried the mantle of the in-game SG and our external website for many years (which briefly became City Folk and then Guardhouse which still exists today).

On New Years Eve 2006, I met my husband for the first time. I was still in Chicago, he was in Georgia - and we used CoH to rendezvous on the weekends we weren't flying out to see each other. It was a magical time.

Over the next few years, I met a bunch of great new friends through CoH. Entertained some, pissed off others, but I was always happy to promote the game as being LGBT-friendly. Watched the community grow thanks to the efforts of DJ Blu and Ida Slapter, Ex Libris coming aboard as a Community mod and helping pave the way for greater community acceptance... Saw plenty of devs come ago but was always happy to see folks like War Witch, Positron, Back Alley Brawler, Castle, Sexy Jay and so many more stick by the game year after year and make the impossible very possible. And I remember *most* of the community mods - from Cuppa Jo to Lighthouse, Alexa, Mod 8 and -- you wouldn't think so many devs could make a mark in your life, now would you? But they did! Each in their own way were very unique and capable and equally loved. I'll miss them. I'll miss them all.

Oh sweet hera when I think of all the time I spent on my main, Rubberlad, running TFs, badge hunting, base building, costume contest judging, market shopping, auction browsing.... I just didn't appreciate how much of a second life this game became until today.

I've become such a different person than when I started in April 2004. Grown, changed, broadened my mind and my horizons and moved across 3 cities before settling down with my husband and our mini schnauzer Gigolo, and still every Sunday, week after week for the last few years, I pulled my SG mates together for CoH Night and we played our vast and many toons across *so many* experimental-themed SGs...


So long Rough Trade...
So long Spirit of Shazam...
So long The Slaughterhouse Boys...
So long The Agenda...
So long Golden Age Heroes...
So long Goons...
So long Alter Egos...
So long Hellbound...
So long Drifters...
So long Guardhouse...


So long, so long, so long... Oh how we played for so long! I can't imagine CoH not being a part of my life after November. I don't know what my SG mates and I will do; this game has been our *glue* through thick and then. And now? What now? What happens now? I don't know but I hope to sweet Hera there's SOMETHING else to look forward to after all the crying I and my SG mates have done today. Today's announcement feels like a premature burial for us all. We weren't ready yet. We just weren't ready...

Since the announcment I've seen Arcanaville post once but nothing yet from GG or Zombie Man. And is Lady Sadako still here? So many wonderful and legendary forum posters I've enjoyed clashing with over the years (except for Samuel Tow - we never clashed; he just made me laugh). Maybe they have and I just missed their posts. You'll have to forgive me if I have. I just can't stop myself from crying over my keyboard.


Oh I love this game and I hate it for leaving me so suddenly. November seems too soon! I want another year! Another lifetime! I want that ******* Post-Apocalypse pack I was just trashing the other day! I wish I'd kept my mouth shut. Even now I'd take the ********* costume pack possible just to have our CoH back.

Life without CoH... How will we ever do without you?