My City, My Thoughts, My Goodbye

To start off, hello. My name is Kara. I'm 27, 28 in November. I am @Dispari in game, on the Virtue server. I've been here over eight years. I was in closed beta for this game. I want to talk a little about this game and what it meant to me.

My best online friend is @LastSon. He and I have been friends a long, long time. It's hard to explain my reason for being in this game without talking about him. Probably none of you know him in-game. But he's a popular guy otherwise. He makes Weird Video Game reviews for Blistered Thumbs. He maintains the Wacky Wiki. We've made significant contributions to the Doom community (as Hyena; I was Nanami there) and the Super Mario World ROM hacking community. He's made and sold some bad fanfiction under the pseudonym Peter Chimera. He's the "No John, you are the demons" guy. So maybe you've heard of him. Why do I mention my best friend in the world? He's the one that told me to "Check out this MMO about superheroes." I thought it was stupid at the time. I didn't want to play some tights-wearing comic book geek. But I joined to play with him.

Once live came, I started off on the Pinnacle server. My first character was a Broadsword Scrapper with lots of red hair and camo pants. Her name was Maulotov. I was going to name her Molotov Cocktail, but the censor didn't like that. This was way back in the day, when Scrappers were the only ones with inherent powers, and you could collect all the debt you ever wanted. The game sucked back then, let's be honest. So I didn't play it much.

Over time, I always found myself coming back to this game. I've played Ragnarok Online, Guild Wars, WoW, Aion, and Granado Espada. None of them were able to keep me like this game. I quit those and never went back. I could never fully leave CoH no matter how much I tried. And eventually I changed to @Dispari, which had at that point become my more common Internet handle. And I moved to Virtue, so I could roleplay. Roleplay's been something I've been doing across various mediums (forums, IRC, AIM, YIM, Furcadia) since I was about 14-15.

I quit the game for a while before CoV and played Guild Wars. But eventually I got tired of the way GW was going, and I got annoyed how my characters were getting nerfed all the time. CoV was fresh and new, and I was tired of GW. It was perfect timing. So I brought my necromancer to CoV, and found I liked it. Sure I missed the little headless raptors, but I enjoyed the feel of playing a Mastermind. Her name is Sudona Forte.

I've been a much more dedicated player since CoV. I won't lie, I took breaks. I protested issues and lack of costume parts (costumes have always meant more to me than most content). I unsubbed when content was low and came back when something looked good. My time in City has been like a roller coaster. A lot of ups and a lot of downs. At time I'd get incredibly invested in everything and spend all my time playing it. Other times I left, and didn't pay attention for months. Then I'd come back with renewed interest.

I was never anything like Arcanaville, but I always tried to be involved in the numbers and balance concerns of the game. I participated in every beta that I can think of. And generally wasn't afraid to tell the devs they were wrong. Back when some people got special privilege and got invited because they were a prominent poster or knew a dev -- I got into those betas. I had had personal conversations with many of the devs, including pohsyb, Castle, BABs, Posi, Synapse, and several others. Like I said, I played other games. None of them had an involved dev community who would actually talk to individual players. I'd never been in a game where I could actually talk to a dev and they'd say "That's a good point." Occasionally, stuff I thought up or talked about or suggested would end up in the game. And that's one of the best feelings in the world.

I think Paragon taking over was the best thing to happen to the game. I never much enjoyed the game back when Jack ran it. Things started improving a lot, and I was excited for the future of the game. So many things we always wanted in this game were suddenly being given to us. The devs really started listening and delivering. The direction of the game was looking bright.

There were a lot of people I met here on the forums. There were people I was usually happy to see posting in a thread. And there were people I loved to hate. Like Venture. To anyone I ever made fun of or insulted, it was all because of the love I had for the game. I always wanted to see the game do well. Arguments over power changes or numbers were all because I loved so much about what this game is about and wanted it to improve. Now that that's all gone, I think we can all see that that's all we really wanted. Those barriers and anger that was misdirected at eachother are gone now. We're all on the same side this time: the side that doesn't want to see City go away.

And I think the reason we don't want it to go away is that it had so much going for it. So many unique things about this game make it good. Not just the responsive and friendly dev community, or the great forumites. Just the way the game was designed always made me love it.

Not many games let you determine what your character looks like totally independent of any sort of stat or class. I always hated how everyone at a given level looks the same, because they're using the same gear. I hate how if I want to actually play and compete I have to look like everyone else. I loved how the game was constantly putting out new costume parts, and spent so much time making the editor more versatile and useful to the players. I spent so much time making outfits. One of my characters has over 50 outfits. Many of which are on my VirtueVerse profile of her.



I never played a game with such a big and expressive community. Back in '09 before the sides were joined, I used to do a weekly costume contest redside. And I'd get my friends to broadcast in several zones about an hour in advance, and every 15 minutes until it started. And then give out hundreds of millions in prizes. Eventually people started donating money to fund future contests. All the creativity of the people showing up for a contest, plus all the kind people willing to give up large sums of cash just so people can have fun? That's something unique.



Not many games let you make any kind of character you want. I always listen to people talk about class balance in other games and just laugh. None of you have the kind of class balance CoH does. I can play anything I want, with any powers I want, built however I want. When I played Ragnarok, it had 30 classes and only 5 were useful. And you had to build them a specific way or people wouldn't invite you. When I played Guild Wars people wanted specific builds and abilities. Some classes were just unpopular in general and usually not taken except for certain situations. I always just wanted the freedom to do what I wanted. I liked being able to make a character MY way, and be useful to a team and being able to contribute and have people be glad that I was there.

I never played a game that's so simultaneously simple and complicated. I loved the fact that you can just slot SOs and enjoy the game. Or go the extra mile and slot IOs. And go even more to do purples. And more with PvP IOs. And more with incarnate. And store-IOs, and boosters, and ATIOs. No other game is like that -- RO just has powers and 6 basic stats. GW has 8 powers and you can put points into a few stats. CoH though? You get tons of powers and have so many stats and ways you can tweak your character to make them something great.



(that empty slot was for the i24 VEAT global damage proc)

I've never played a game that had such a vibrant RP community. The people I met and the stories I got to experience. People have such great imaginations. I've never known a game where roleplayers can come together and just create. If there were RP communities in the other games I played, I didn't know it. They had really tiny text limits, so you could barely get through a whole sentence, when I'm the type of person who wants to write two paragraphs per turn. With the huge amount of in-game lore, the way anyone can make a character look like however they want, the game-provided bios, and all the expressive emotions and high character limit... everyone's imaginations just soar. And people came up with all kinds of characters. Even if they were usually some type of futa catgirl.

Also never played a game where you could make your own bases and hideouts. I made some great personal houses for some of my characters. I made a big mansion for friends in a VG. And an apartment complex for another friend of mine. Never played a game where you could make your own badguys and plots. I made some great stories for AE, with level 50 Trolls, and a high-tech villain group named Ninox, and an immortal kitsune that works for Ouroboros that tricks you into having originally created her, and a super-famous celebrity superhero that you can go on a date with before she dumps you.

I have characters whose lives are tied up in City of Heroes. My main character is an ex-Arachnos widow. Her personality and abililties are shaped by what City of Heroes offered. It will be hard to move her somewhere else. I've migrated characters before. My necromancer from GW like I said. But she had no story and no personality there. And she wasn't tied up in the story of the game. And worst of all, I wasn't forced. I wasn't faced with that impending doom, knowing that if I don't move her, she'll simply stop existing. She'll die. That's a painful feeling, knowing that characters you've devoted time to are being destroyed by some outside force. So my widow, Victoria Noir, will live on. But she will have to change. I don't think she'll still be the same person she is now.



And I've done so much in this game. Ten current level 50s. I've even deleted a couple 50s, and numerous characters 40-49, and way more below that. I have six incarnates. I have over 2b influence, none of which I earned by farming or playing the market. Eight of my characters are fully IOed out. Victoria is outfitted to the gills. She has purples (1.5 sets) and ATIOs. She has 7 incarnate powers at VR, and 3 others at rare. She has +30% damage from set bonuses, two procs in every attack, and 1300 badges. She has both Confront and Placate, and can juggle aggro in BAFs and solo item grabs in Lambdas. I enjoyed soloing AVs and even GMs with her. And I was looking forward to trying to solo Lusca when i24 launched. In the last few days alone, I had just respecced Vicky and dropped 250m adjusting her build in preparation for i24. I did trials to have 96 astrals, so I could buy some of the new ATIOs coming out. I got two Hybrids to VR, and was collecting components and threads for upcoming incarnate stuff. I was clearing out my contacts list. And when I heard the news? I was badge hunting.

My girlfriend played CoH back in the day, and decided to retry it for me. She installed the game the day before we got the message. It was going to be something she and I could share together. Something I could share with her. When she played the game it was pretty terrible. I wanted to show her how it changed and how great it is now. Even now she doesn't understand why I'm so upset, that it makes me cry that the game is going to end. Which is really sad. I wanted her to understand.

So it's easy to understand why I'm heartbroken that the game is ending. There's so much left unfinished. The coming storm, all the incarnate slots, Pandora's Box, Ouroboros, new powersets, new costumes. And my own characters and their builds and personal stories. A lot of people physically cried over the loss of the game. I was one of them. The loss of the game is a loss of a part of me, and a part of who I am (or was) and things that had become a part of my life. I didn't play this game every day, or even every month. But if you do ANYTHING for eight years, it's hard to find that you're not attached to it.

Across eight years, hundreds of characters (I still have 30 on Virtue even now), several SGs and VGs (shout out to Cold Front and Rogue Entertainment), lots of friends, lots of leveling and roleplaying and beta testing... it's hard to just let go. I've commissioned artwork of my characters, I've spent money on points and powers for this game that aren't worth anything anymore. But I don't feel like any of it was a waste or that any of it wasn't worthwhile. We all knew this game would end someday, whether today or ten years from now. I mean come on, some of you are pretty young. Did you really think you'd be here for Issue 180? If we really felt it was a waste we would never have played at all. Everything I did helped me when I needed it. It got me through some difficult times and helped me make some connections with great people. It's not like I don't have anything to show for all the time I spent here.

And, I'm going to try and keep some of that going. I'm going to head over to City of Heroes Veterans and stay with the VirtueVerse group. There's also a Steam group called Virtue Remnants. And hopefully TonyV's project makes some headway. I've been thinking of writing a story for three of my characters for quite some time, and never got around to it. I may just do that now. So, in some way I'm expecting CoH to live on. And I'm going to try to be a part of that.

I wish everyone who played, and all the devs, the best in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Dizzy....thank you. For being a friend. For taking the time to answer my noobish questions. For...just being there when I needed someone to be. I'm sad to see this game go, too. And mad as hell at the corporate reasons behind it, whatever they may be.

In my heart of hearts...I know it's all about the mighty dollar, and the closure of this game has incited me to finally join my heart to those that see the truth. That corporations just don't care about the people that make their money simply because there are plenty of others that will work for pennies so CEO's and VP's and boards of directors can live in 40 room mansions while the workers often go home to an apartment crammed with 40 people.

I've met some wonderful people in this game...and you're one of them. Never change. But I implore that you and others open their eyes to the social crimes that go on and -care- about it.

This is the last straw for me. No more. I will rage against the dying of the light until my last breath wheezes out of my lungs.

Dear friend...I will miss this game and the interactions I had in it. While we may still stay in touch...-these- particular interactions are going to be gone. Nevermore will we pound on Freakshow. Or Crey. Or the minions of Cole. We'll never see the Coming Storm. And it makes me cry, two days later. I'll probably shed a tear a year later. That's how much this game and my friends in it mean to me. For what it's worth....*HUG* Be well, Dizzy. May you find fortune and favor wherever you go.

Thank you Mercy. I had fun hanging with you guys and working on the RE base. Hopefully we can all continue to stay connected and be friends.

For anyone who wants to get in touch with me, contact info is in my sig. And if I'm on, I'll be idling in the D on Virtue until the game shuts down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.