Ok this might be long, but it's a lot of memories and heart-felt emotions, and I don't care..After 8 years of playing I think I'm allowed. (I tried making paragraphs but it wound up looking the way it does, I'm sorry about that. But please read it anyway)
Wow..It's really here..this is it..I NEVER thought this day would ever happen...Just goes to show how life throws you a curve...
Like it did 8 years ago when a guy I used to work with at Verizon told me about this game. He knew I was into comic books and was trying, still am, to find an artist to draw my comic book scripts. I said I don't think i'd be into an online role-playing game. I was a longtime pen-and-paper rp'er ad my longtime group had a really bad falling out a few years earlier. But something, I don't know what, told me to try this game out. That was July 2004.
I thought it would be cool if I could make my favorite superhero character, Pogoman, one I created for Champions the pen-and-paper version back then. Lo and behold he looked exactly like a friend had drawn for me! And he had super reflexes and martial arts! This was turning out ok..So there I was, I went through outbreak, no problem.. I just thought it was so cool to watch my character do kicks I had only envisioned on paper. Then I went to Atlas Park. All the while, I had no idea why I had chosen Virtue as my server.
and then, my first mishap....I was stuck in the water around the statue of Atlas and couldn't figure out...how to jump...great. Pogoman can't jump out of a little bit of water..this was humiliating..I thought I'd ask in broadcast because my friend told me everyone is really helpful.. the first response was some guy asking 'Are you serious???' I was mortified and quickly logged off.
I waited 2 hours and logged back on. In the meantime I found the cheatsheet that told you what all the keys on the keyboard could do.
Hey, I was overly excited to try this game out and didnt realize the sheet had fallen under my chair. So, I was back in action. My first real ission..and..omg! the npc's were calling me by my name!! This was getting cooler by the moment.
To speed up a bit, I made some friends and got my first travel power, super jump, a few days later. I even upgraded the memory on my pc because it was
running too slow. I met a tanker named Grundos Madcow and joined his sg- Deadmen Walking..Funny, I haven't seen him in years, but cheerish our playing together as the "Devastating Duo". He taught me how to be an effective scrapper..(ok, before respecs came out I even 3-slotted brawl back then. lol)
Eventually we could respec and, yes, I no longer had brawl 3-slotted. And by christmas eve I had hit 50. We played and rp'd EVERY night.
I wound up becoming friends with members of another sg, the Virtue Honor Guard. Through interacting with them at my first hami raid, and subsequent raids, a few weeks later I joined their sg. In no time I had risen through the ranks to be one of the 3 co-leaders and recruiting officer. Later on I was put in charge of designing the base and designing our current sg uniforms. Our group would lead the Hammi raids back then and we had a rivalry with another sg- Evolution. It bordered on a sg war, but somehow we wouldn't cross that line.
After a while that group split up. Some members of VHG left because back then, nothing was coming out for end game content.
City of villians beta came and we all signed up and joined. it was definitely different and we had our fun playing villians. But the rest of the group wanted to play on Protector. I went with them, but something was missing for me. I came back and rejoined my fellow Virtueites and pretty much stayed on the blueside. if I ever made a villian from then on it was on Virtue.
Time passed and many alts, most made it to 50, later. I heard of this new group called "The Sushi Schoolgirl Squad." They were quite humorous and it sparked memories of watching Benny Hill when I was a kid. At the time I would also hear requests for 'Heavy RP SG's'.
I told some people that everytime I heard that I though of a supergroup full of Sumos. It all tied together and I created and unleashed onto Virtue the one and only, 'Numbah One Sumo Japan Yokozuna' himself, Beeg Beefee Boi. It was comedic RP gold. A badass tanker who could take it more than his opponents could dish out and herd with the very best of them and still be comic relief with his 'Engrish'.And, yes, he quickly was allowed into the Sushis. To this day, with all my alts. If I wasn't playing Pogoman, I had to be on
as Beeg Beefee Boi. No matter how bland an event was, he could make eveyone laugh. Man those were good times. As he was reaching 50
I saw the group dynamic changing as some people left. A few weeks later after he had hit 50, I though what could be funnier than him?
What if there was a mini version of him..Hence, the creation of his, unbeknownest to him, cloned son beefee Boi Jr.
Anyway through all this fun and massive hours of playing COH, I had gone through several bouts of pneumonia, a very bad knee that finally got
operated on, massive problems with my job and problems in my personal life that only by playing coh could I cope with it all. (Even now I have a very bad back and I am weeks away from having lap-band surgery and i turn to COH to get my mind off of it, at least for a little while.)
City of Heroes and Virtue became my home, the Virtueites my family. The last few years I had spent too much time away due to two carpal tunnel
surgeries. I want to thank all of you who, in your own way, helped me through it all. I don't know how I could've done it without you.
And, I can't leave this out, I joined up with a bunch of forum role-players in a little place we call 'The Rookery'. To each of them, they are my closest and dearest friends. The thought of not talking to any of them ever again brought tears to my eyes.
So many friends have moved on or left the game unexplicably, yet Virtue and CoH remained strong.
There are so many things I havent mentioned- all the Hammi raids, all the task forces, all the alts, and, more importantly, all the nights just sitting
around role-playing. I think those nights I remember the most. And, if this is the end, I will miss it greatly.
I think I'm babbling now, but I've had 8 full years, well the last 2 1/2 not so much as I said, but I was making a comeback, of wonderful playing with
so many good people. The rp community at first didn't take me in or accept me for some reason. I'd like to think I've become more than
welcomed by now. Ok, with that last sentence, tears are filling my eyes. In the end i just want to say:
Thank you City of Heroes and a bigger Thank You to Virtue for..everything. In the end it means more than the world to me and I really, really hate the thought of it disappearing just like that after the incredible long run we've had. Please, don't go..I don't know what could EVER fill the void.
-Pogoman, Master of Kick-Fu
-Co-Leader and recruiting officer of the Virtue Honor Guard
- lvl 50 ma/sr scrapper
-Ace O' Diamonds lvl 50 fire/rad controller
and waaaay to many other alts to mention right now
Ok this might be long, but it's a lot of memories and heart-felt emotions, and I don't care..After 8 years of playing I think I'm allowed. (I tried making paragraphs but it wound up looking the way it does, I'm sorry about that. But please read it anyway)
Wow..It's really here..this is it..I NEVER thought this day would ever happen...Just goes to show how life throws you a curve...
Like it did 8 years ago when a guy I used to work with at Verizon told me about this game. He knew I was into comic books and was trying, still am, to find an artist to draw my comic book scripts. I said I don't think i'd be into an online role-playing game. I was a longtime pen-and-paper rp'er ad my longtime group had a really bad falling out a few years earlier. But something, I don't know what, told me to try this game out. That was July 2004.
I thought it would be cool if I could make my favorite superhero character, Pogoman, one I created for Champions the pen-and-paper version back then. Lo and behold he looked exactly like a friend had drawn for me! And he had super reflexes and martial arts! This was turning out ok..So there I was, I went through outbreak, no problem.. I just thought it was so cool to watch my character do kicks I had only envisioned on paper. Then I went to Atlas Park. All the while, I had no idea why I had chosen Virtue as my server.
and then, my first mishap....I was stuck in the water around the statue of Atlas and couldn't figure out...how to jump...great. Pogoman can't jump out of a little bit of water..this was humiliating..I thought I'd ask in broadcast because my friend told me everyone is really helpful.. the first response was some guy asking 'Are you serious???' I was mortified and quickly logged off.
I waited 2 hours and logged back on. In the meantime I found the cheatsheet that told you what all the keys on the keyboard could do.
Hey, I was overly excited to try this game out and didnt realize the sheet had fallen under my chair. So, I was back in action. My first real ission..and..omg! the npc's were calling me by my name!! This was getting cooler by the moment.
To speed up a bit, I made some friends and got my first travel power, super jump, a few days later. I even upgraded the memory on my pc because it was
running too slow. I met a tanker named Grundos Madcow and joined his sg- Deadmen Walking..Funny, I haven't seen him in years, but cheerish our playing together as the "Devastating Duo". He taught me how to be an effective scrapper..(ok, before respecs came out I even 3-slotted brawl back then. lol)
Eventually we could respec and, yes, I no longer had brawl 3-slotted. And by christmas eve I had hit 50. We played and rp'd EVERY night.
I wound up becoming friends with members of another sg, the Virtue Honor Guard. Through interacting with them at my first hami raid, and subsequent raids, a few weeks later I joined their sg. In no time I had risen through the ranks to be one of the 3 co-leaders and recruiting officer. Later on I was put in charge of designing the base and designing our current sg uniforms. Our group would lead the Hammi raids back then and we had a rivalry with another sg- Evolution. It bordered on a sg war, but somehow we wouldn't cross that line.
After a while that group split up. Some members of VHG left because back then, nothing was coming out for end game content.
City of villians beta came and we all signed up and joined. it was definitely different and we had our fun playing villians. But the rest of the group wanted to play on Protector. I went with them, but something was missing for me. I came back and rejoined my fellow Virtueites and pretty much stayed on the blueside. if I ever made a villian from then on it was on Virtue.
Time passed and many alts, most made it to 50, later. I heard of this new group called "The Sushi Schoolgirl Squad." They were quite humorous and it sparked memories of watching Benny Hill when I was a kid. At the time I would also hear requests for 'Heavy RP SG's'.
I told some people that everytime I heard that I though of a supergroup full of Sumos. It all tied together and I created and unleashed onto Virtue the one and only, 'Numbah One Sumo Japan Yokozuna' himself, Beeg Beefee Boi. It was comedic RP gold. A badass tanker who could take it more than his opponents could dish out and herd with the very best of them and still be comic relief with his 'Engrish'.And, yes, he quickly was allowed into the Sushis. To this day, with all my alts. If I wasn't playing Pogoman, I had to be on
as Beeg Beefee Boi. No matter how bland an event was, he could make eveyone laugh. Man those were good times. As he was reaching 50
I saw the group dynamic changing as some people left. A few weeks later after he had hit 50, I though what could be funnier than him?
What if there was a mini version of him..Hence, the creation of his, unbeknownest to him, cloned son beefee Boi Jr.
Anyway through all this fun and massive hours of playing COH, I had gone through several bouts of pneumonia, a very bad knee that finally got
operated on, massive problems with my job and problems in my personal life that only by playing coh could I cope with it all. (Even now I have a very bad back and I am weeks away from having lap-band surgery and i turn to COH to get my mind off of it, at least for a little while.)
City of Heroes and Virtue became my home, the Virtueites my family. The last few years I had spent too much time away due to two carpal tunnel
surgeries. I want to thank all of you who, in your own way, helped me through it all. I don't know how I could've done it without you.
And, I can't leave this out, I joined up with a bunch of forum role-players in a little place we call 'The Rookery'. To each of them, they are my closest and dearest friends. The thought of not talking to any of them ever again brought tears to my eyes.
So many friends have moved on or left the game unexplicably, yet Virtue and CoH remained strong.
There are so many things I havent mentioned- all the Hammi raids, all the task forces, all the alts, and, more importantly, all the nights just sitting
around role-playing. I think those nights I remember the most. And, if this is the end, I will miss it greatly.
I think I'm babbling now, but I've had 8 full years, well the last 2 1/2 not so much as I said, but I was making a comeback, of wonderful playing with
so many good people. The rp community at first didn't take me in or accept me for some reason. I'd like to think I've become more than
welcomed by now. Ok, with that last sentence, tears are filling my eyes. In the end i just want to say:
Thank you City of Heroes and a bigger Thank You to Virtue for..everything. In the end it means more than the world to me and I really, really hate the thought of it disappearing just like that after the incredible long run we've had. Please, don't go..I don't know what could EVER fill the void.
-Pogoman, Master of Kick-Fu
-Co-Leader and recruiting officer of the Virtue Honor Guard
- lvl 50 ma/sr scrapper
-Ace O' Diamonds lvl 50 fire/rad controller
and waaaay to many other alts to mention right now