I started playing City of Heroes two weeks after launch and lost the summer of 2004 to the game. I pulled eight or more friends into the game and we played together over the course of its life. I was so enamored with the experience that I wrote a couple of short stories for the back of the City of Heroes comic book. I was in love in a way I never expected from a game.
I'd call it a gateway drug to other MMOs, but honestly, I was always chasing those first highs; the first time I was able to fly in the game, the first time I played a Warshade, the first time I won a costume contest in Atlas Park, my first Hamidon raid, my first base when we discovered the stacking glitch. No game matched those levels of exhilaration or sense of reward. Every time I thought the game reached its zenith, they figured out another way to give it more life.
I was also there when the servers went dark, holding a torch, and I was heartbroken because the blow felt inhumanely savage. I suddenly missed the game more than I realized, and I pined for it and even had dreams about it years later. I heard about the private server through my coworkers, but I never managed to get an invite, though I *may* have snuck in a session or two on my friend's account.
All that to say, I am so grateful to the people involved for this moment. I work in videogames, and it's so easy to lose sight of that foundational element that brought us into the industry in the first place... to have fun playing and making games.
So to the people involved in all this, thank you for making this possible. I haven't had fun like this in nearly six years.
It's good to be back home with family.
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