My first experience with City of Heroes came back in 2008-2009 when a friend of mine, Iperithon, showed me the game on his computer at home. Character, the world of the City, his SG base. He even let me try making a character on his account: I opted for some blue insect thing with ice powers. Think it was a blaster. Can't really remember, but it was cool at the time.
I bought my copy of the Architect Edition on December 26, 2009. Boxing Day. I specifically remember that I only paid roughly $5 for it at EB Games. Target acquired and acquisitioned. I would not actually break down and install the game until about a week later, January 6, 2010.
City of Heroes was my first Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.
I started on Triumph, pants and all, with my first hero Arctracer (Elec/SR SCR) and shortly after created a first villain, Metadelicon (Plant/Earth DOM). I made a couple of other characters, including an Ice tank version of blue insect man from my playtesting at Iperithon's house, which became Antarchon. I tried making my first SG, the Triumph Trisortion, with my first real global friend (he's called @PyroFyr now) and it admittedly didn't go all that great.
By March, I started to dabble into other servers. At one time I had characters going in three of them: Triumph, Freedom (it was a good idea initially, but eventually it became my graveyard server and I eventually stopped playing there altogether), and Virtue.
There was a thing about Virtue.
Originally, I didn't roleplay even though I had forum RP experience back from a thing I did on a Kingdom Hearts fan boards. I had a Fire blaster named Distray Zone join the Paragonian Knights, later followed by some Fire scrapper that I made only because of an in-joke at my (now former) place of work. Neither of those characters actually exist now (but for what it's worth, I actually have a PK collectors coin that I keep special). My friend from triumph moved over to Virtue as well and started a gargoyle themed SG that started OK but died too quickly.
And then I made Cumulatrole. Read: a mutant kid that could turn his body into a cloud-like vapor. That was what I consider to be my first true concept character. The RP came shortly after, when I went to the roof of the old City Hall and met Gravity Blast, who was leader of the New Age Mutants at the time. We chatted in character, things happened...
I'm not going to go into details about how every single character of mine came about: the grand majority of my City characters were quickthink concepts that never appeared anywhere else before. But that was the start, and it would not end.
I've been in various RPSGs in my time on Virtue. Enough that among friends, they'd joke that I was simply everywhere and knew too many people. I've toned that down since, but I've been in the PK, the NAM, the Empire of Atlantis, the Palladium Sentry, the Northern Watch, the Protagonists (and the Protectorates, too), Hyperion Force, the Golden Age Heroes (Gods and Young Gods), the All Star Teen Sentinels... am I missing any (other than possible vanity groups)?
I've gone through phases of various RPing characters: there are only a couple of them now that have "survived" to this day. But honestly, I say that the grand majority of characters I have now, that I've built* and developed and made to interact, with me as their voice... I am my character just as much as I am just a human on the real side of the screen.
That's one thing that I try to explain every time someone asks me why I sometimes play this game too much. This isn't like a single player game like some of the other games I consider myself as a fan of. This is an MMO. I am interacting with people, only through another medium. I understand that I still need to get outside (it is not a lie, I have been there!), but sometimes I let my character take over because in order to truly understand what I'm doing, I have to become. And I'm hoping that some of it rubs off on me as a person.
With that said, I want to thank everyone here wholeheartedly for being part of an amazing experience here: the developers (past and paster) for making and maintaining this game, the moderators for being here and as awesome as you all are, the half of the community I don't know for... I dunno because I don't know you but you're all great, the friends and supergroup allies I've been able to get to know and bond with through the good times and the bad ones, in character and out of.
I'm going to take a turn for a bit of retrospect.
My first experience with City of Heroes came back in 2008-2009 when a friend of mine, Iperithon, showed me the game on his computer at home. Character, the world of the City, his SG base. He even let me try making a character on his account: I opted for some blue insect thing with ice powers. Think it was a blaster. Can't really remember, but it was cool at the time.
I bought my copy of the Architect Edition on December 26, 2009. Boxing Day. I specifically remember that I only paid roughly $5 for it at EB Games. Target acquired and acquisitioned. I would not actually break down and install the game until about a week later, January 6, 2010.
City of Heroes was my first Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.
I started on Triumph, pants and all, with my first hero Arctracer (Elec/SR SCR) and shortly after created a first villain, Metadelicon (Plant/Earth DOM). I made a couple of other characters, including an Ice tank version of blue insect man from my playtesting at Iperithon's house, which became Antarchon. I tried making my first SG, the Triumph Trisortion, with my first real global friend (he's called @PyroFyr now) and it admittedly didn't go all that great.
By March, I started to dabble into other servers. At one time I had characters going in three of them: Triumph, Freedom (it was a good idea initially, but eventually it became my graveyard server and I eventually stopped playing there altogether), and Virtue.
There was a thing about Virtue.
Originally, I didn't roleplay even though I had forum RP experience back from a thing I did on a Kingdom Hearts fan boards. I had a Fire blaster named Distray Zone join the Paragonian Knights, later followed by some Fire scrapper that I made only because of an in-joke at my (now former) place of work. Neither of those characters actually exist now (but for what it's worth, I actually have a PK collectors coin that I keep special). My friend from triumph moved over to Virtue as well and started a gargoyle themed SG that started OK but died too quickly.
And then I made Cumulatrole. Read: a mutant kid that could turn his body into a cloud-like vapor. That was what I consider to be my first true concept character. The RP came shortly after, when I went to the roof of the old City Hall and met Gravity Blast, who was leader of the New Age Mutants at the time. We chatted in character, things happened...
I'm not going to go into details about how every single character of mine came about: the grand majority of my City characters were quickthink concepts that never appeared anywhere else before. But that was the start, and it would not end.
I've been in various RPSGs in my time on Virtue. Enough that among friends, they'd joke that I was simply everywhere and knew too many people. I've toned that down since, but I've been in the PK, the NAM, the Empire of Atlantis, the Palladium Sentry, the Northern Watch, the Protagonists (and the Protectorates, too), Hyperion Force, the Golden Age Heroes (Gods and Young Gods), the All Star Teen Sentinels... am I missing any (other than possible vanity groups)?
I've gone through phases of various RPing characters: there are only a couple of them now that have "survived" to this day. But honestly, I say that the grand majority of characters I have now, that I've built* and developed and made to interact, with me as their voice... I am my character just as much as I am just a human on the real side of the screen.
That's one thing that I try to explain every time someone asks me why I sometimes play this game too much. This isn't like a single player game like some of the other games I consider myself as a fan of. This is an MMO. I am interacting with people, only through another medium. I understand that I still need to get outside (it is not a lie, I have been there!), but sometimes I let my character take over because in order to truly understand what I'm doing, I have to become. And I'm hoping that some of it rubs off on me as a person.
With that said, I want to thank everyone here wholeheartedly for being part of an amazing experience here: the developers (past and paster) for making and maintaining this game, the moderators for being here and as awesome as you all are, the half of the community I don't know for... I dunno because I don't know you but you're all great, the friends and supergroup allies I've been able to get to know and bond with through the good times and the bad ones, in character and out of.
A toast to our heroism. May it ever live on.
Nicholas Roberts
@Epelesker