UltraAlt

On the more populated servers, the chats were full of people wanting to doorsit to level to 50 and AE babies (new players that had been power leveled to 50) that didn't know how to get out of Atlas park .. and, of course, this was like a harvest coming in for ...you may have guessed it ... the goldfarmers - who were now more numerous and spamming even more than before. I wasn't liking the game too much But I had really loved the game. Sure City of Villains came out in there somewhere. I played in the beta. I played some of the content, but really didn't like it. I guess I like playing heroes. The only real difference it made was being able to make bases, and that was fun. City of Heroes next big move was to go "Rogue". My computer was made to play the original game. The DEVs wanted to create a new game with improved graphics that wouldn't play on my computer. I wasn't in the position to save up for a new computer at the time. I had really enjoyed playing City of Heroes. The DEVs put in setting to dummy down the graphics in Praetoria for old computers. I bought "Going Rogue" because I was supporting the game. I played the beta. I hated it. I bought City of Heroes to play superheroes in Cityscapes of American comicbooks and not some dystopian but super clean version of a 2000 AD future (don't get me wrong. I subscribed to 2000 AD for years) I was not liking my gaming experience as much. Incarnate system. Microtransactions. Goldfarmer influence inflation in the market. Arrogant new players that had a 50 that demanded that they knew more about the game than I did because I was level 25 and they had dinged the first character they made to 50 in the AE the previous Friday. Done. My gaming experience in City of Heroes ruined. I made a costume of a Praetorian clockwork and loaded into all my characters in all 150+ character slots. I changed the bio on all my characters to "Move along citizen, nothing to see here". moved them one at a time, to atlas park next to Ms. Liberty and used [Power:Prestige Utility.Self Destruction] to blow them up before logging each of them out for the last time. I hated what City of Heroes had become. I cancelled my subscription almost exactly a year before the sunset and never logged into my account again. A friend of mine invited me over to his house on the day the servers were shut down. He had continued to play. That was the end for City of Heroes ... or so we thought ... I didn't feel bad about it being shut down. I felt a bit bad for the people that loved it that had lost it. I mourned for what it had been when I enjoyed playing it. [to be continued]

Then something revolutionary happened. We were going to be able to create our own missions. We would be able to add to the insanely awesome gaming experience that was City of Heroes. But there were things creeping around in the background. Gameplay styles and game activity that I didn't agree with. I avoided them as best I could. Teaming was set up so that mentoring/sidekicking could be use to power-level characters. I alway had felt that this was not in the true nature of the game and that it bypassed the experience of being a hero gaining experience and knowledge of the City. It wasn't so hard to avoid being a part of this. Sometimes it was more or less inescapable if one wanted to run on a big team or on a task force. In the background, higher level character were already farming missions by not completing them and resetting them to run them over and over. I felt bad about this, so I avoided it. I loved the game. Goldfarmers were becoming rampant. You couldn't log into the game without a bunch of new goldfarmers spamming their illicit wares. New because the accounts breaking the EULA would be deleted and the ignore list is only so long. Annoying to log into a game I loved to play and have to deal with that from the get-go each log in. But I loved the game. DEVs promised that the AE would only be used for mission creation that behaved like missions in the game itself. Some players wanted it to work otherwise. They were designing power leveling missions on the test server and the DEVs knew it. They made it clear that a 40-ton ban-hammer would be used on anyone making powerleveling/farming missions using AE. AE was released. The 40-ton ban-hammer dropped. The AE Farmers threatened to quit playing if they couldn't farm/powerlevel in the AE. Who knows what other kinds of threats were sent to the DEV team at the time. The Dev's caved. AE Farming/powerleveling was now let loose in the CIty. I hated it. It made the game feel tainted to me. But I loved the game. Around this time, the 14-day trials were everywhere. Before too long, City of Heroes went F2P. [to be continued]

So maybe this is where the answer actually begins. I buy parts and a friend of mine helps me assemble the computer so I can play CoH. I think I was in maybe a week before the drop of Episode 2. Finally, triumphantly, I was able to create my first character in a 3D superhero world! Finally. And the first character I made was character that I had played in a Champions campaign that was a group of supervillains. It was so great. The world looked great. I was excited. Ran out in the streets. Fought Hellions. Was scared to death to /quit out o the game. I thought for sure it meant I would be deleting the character and would have to start over. Luckily, /help to the rescue. More than one person reassured me that I would be okay to /quit out of the game and that my character would be safely where I left it when I /quit out of the game. So I immediately logged back on and started making another character. I made 10 (or whatever the max was back then) on the same server the same day. Wasn't long until I found out I wasn't just limited to the one server, I could make that many on all the servers. I could explore the game in all kinds of different ways. I could have all kinds of powers whenever I felt like playing those powers. It was awesome. But then some archetypes were no equal. I liked playing all the archetypes (tanks less than the other 4). It became clear - he/she who does the damage gets the XP and influence. Defenders and to a large extent Controllers were pretty much screwed. I had a defender that was like level 12-15 that couldn't get enough insp to even by enough training insps to slot up fully - which meant that they could do even less damage than the slotted damage dealers on the team, so getting even less influence. I had to step away from playing those archetypes and fall back to blasters and scrappers which could actually progress in content. But, I was still playing 3D superheroes running around fighting crime and teaming up with a random group of heroes. Good times. I did what I could to help out in the /help channel whenever I could as it had pretty much saved me from a heart attack by using /quit and not knowing what it would do. The market came out. This was a .... yeah again ... "a game changer" for me. My Defenders and Controllers could buy pass the mission influence grind by creating things and selling them to the damage dealers that were making more influence. The market became a huge part of my CoH gaming. It still is. It was great playing characters and leveling up. Getting that "ding". Getting new powers. Defeating foes that could defeat my characters so easily before. I was, and still am, playing for that experience of being able to run around leveling up, learning to use new powers, and helping the citizens of Paragon City - both PC and NPC. Fighting crime on the streets and in missions - helping people on the /help channel. [to be continued next issue]

This is pretty wide and unfocused. So my answer will be in that mode as well. I have been into comic books since I was probably 8 or 9. I wasn't able really to try collect any series until I was a tween. My ability to expand my collecting occurred over time and expanded. In parallel to my enjoyment of comics, I was a gamer. I played board games, chess, etc. This expanded into Avalon Hill tactical board games. Then something happened, a kid that sat in front of me in Geometry class had a copy of the white box set of D&D. The original D&D. Not the Basic D&D starter set with the blue book and the first three levels - the white box with like the first 3 or 4 digest sided books. After that I was at gaming stores looking for more D&D stuff, ran into the original Starfleet Battles, Battle Droids (the original MechWarrior), etc. ".... hey, hold up! This doesn't have anything to do with City of Heroes ...." I'm getting there. I ran into Traveller. The Sci-Fi game of the not-so-far future. Almost immediately, well, immediately when GM'ing the game, I was running a world "5 years from now in the Marvel Comics Universe". After the first successful tour with a military unit (you could pretty easily die during character creation using the original Traveller rules), you could try to join SHIELD. You could this each tour as you progressed through character creation and could continue as a member of SHIELD until your character mustered out of service into actual game play. I wanted to be running a game in the superhero universe with players interacting with and becoming superheroes in their own right. First group of players were very Mercenary minded and pretty much became villains from the get go. Fast-forward to the next gaming group of Traveller players. Same scenario, but players could try to gain superpowers by gaining a mutation. Mutations were entirely random. A mutation event would occur. Players would say a power they wanted. I would roll 3 dice. If they came up all 6's that was the power their character had. No double picking, new power each dice roll. Was somewhat time consuming but had interesting results and this time people actually played heroes. "... but this isn't about City of Heroes..." I know, I'm still getting there. The original Champions RPG finally came out. Sure. Other superhero RPGs came out, but Champions point based character system was incredibly complicated and extremely balanced. That was... sorry... "a game changer". I no longer had to modify a game to create super-heroes. I had a game that was designed for superheroes. I played and ran multiple Champions games interspersed with other RPGs for the next decade+ "... but you aren't even talking about computer games ..." Yeah, computers were progressing over that time as well. The first "computer" game I played was a game about landing a lunar lander on a HP calculator. There weren't home computers that far back in time. So I was there for the TRS-80, the VIC Commodore, Atari 800, etc. Time passes. The guys that I had been gaming with for years were all thinking about ways to bring Champions as it truly should be done to computers in a 3-D game. Can you imagine. Back then wanting a real 3D world you could run around in versus the kind of environments that were around back then? Unheard of. Less time passes. I see an advertisement for City of Heroes. I don't have a computer that can run the game, but I buy it anyway. While I'm saving up to buy parts to build a computer, I'm going through the book on the game figuring out what characters I'm going to make. "Oh, that power, yeah, I know which character I made can do that... and this one.. yeah, and that one too... that would be cool. I have to think of something to match those power sets. [to be continued next issue]

You are fully able to create your own poll. Think you can do better? Create one.

It would be virtually impossible to play equal time between two let alone three, but understood that there is some very small percentage would indicate some level of equality between two or all three. You are free to create your own poll. Be free.

This is not a discussion any more. You want an argument. And once again you are insulting me. Good day, sir.

Even if you only play one character, you have an answer for this. Poll is open until the end of June

"Always - I get it from the start and use it until level 50" is actually a lower percentage than I thought.

Bad behavior is bad behavior. Good day, sir.

And these are not intended as insults? Am I trying to vilify a server? If pointing out that the highest population server has a higher chance of producing bad behavior is vilifying the server, then - yes. I am doing that.

I don't take it anymore. There are some stone control AoEs that break when they are attacked as well that I don't take either. It tends to only useful if you solo. I can see how it could help stealthing to the end of some missions. On a team, someone is going to AoE everything you tried to put to sleep. you probably can put some procs it to do some damage, but I don't think it would be worth the endurance expenditure. I thinks would function better if the fx was changed to disorient (like they are suddenly very drowsy/sleep but not entirely unconscious). I can't see it being switched to an immobilize.

I'm not going to run in circles with you any more. I said that I saw it happening more on Excelsior than the other servers. That's the truth from my point of view. It can't be debated. I don't see large numbers of Excelsior players running to the rescue. That's true too. The thread isn't that long. And Excelsior is the most populated server. This too is true.

I'm going to go ahead and bait the trolls again (because they like that apparently) This isn't targeted at the person that I'm replying to, but they have pointed out something that is a very important element in this topic. The only "official" events are those held by DEVs/GMs. I do not believe they would behave in the manner discussed in the original post. The other events are player created events. These are not "official". Like the RP and PVP servers - they are "unofficial". I'm more than welcome to discuss how someone that has a long-standing event feels like they have ownership of whatever it is their event is related to. That is their feeling and opinion on their part. My opinion - yes OPINION - is that in regards to game forums only 10-25% of the game population goes to the forums for any reason other than to find the answer to a specific problem or check out the WTF. only 10-25% of that number will dig to find posts about things that they are interested in but might not have a specific question about (such as guides) only 10-25% of that number will dig any deeper into the forums in the case of Homecoming only 10-25% of that number that dig any deeper into the forums really care much about the calendar event postings or clubs. Homecoming is on the higher end of the percentages, but, saying that, a large majority of player simply don't know/don't care about the calendar events or clubs, I haven't played every game that ever came out. I've played some. This seems to be the general behavior. My opinion can't be wrong. It's my opinion. Just the same as anyone else opinion. People can disagree with it. I can disagree with their opinion. Our personal experience is all any of us have and that is what our opinions are based on.

This is true. I try to keep the mask on as much as I can. It is a superhero thing. Excelsior isn't the main server that I play on. I think I have played on Excelsior about as much as the 3 others that are not my main server. I have 20 characters there. I do team on Excelsior. Most of the game play I do is teaming. I don't solo very much. I have lead a good number of teams on Excelsior but I have not lead all the teams that I have been a part of. A majority of my gameplay on Excelsior is task forces. I played from around Episode 2 (I think it was a week or two before Episode 2 dropped) until about a year before the shutdown. I stopped playing City of Heroes because of the increased amount of microtransactions for subscribers, a change in the attitude of players caused by going F2P, the incarnate system, and some other game play related things (I really hate AE Farming but I don't have to take part - when it comes down to it, they give me their influence) The people that I gamed with regularly were great. Homecoming came back and others that I had gamed with pretty much said "come on back, the water's fine" - in my case "there are no microtransactions or goldfarmers" There are cool people here to be found. I g-friend them, and we hang out when the stars are right. People have g-friended me on Excelsior, but I haven't g-friended anyone there. ... as stated... You haven't provide me with any data to substantiate your opinion either.

yet you would do the same to me. ironic

Yep. Our personal experience is all any of of us have. I agree when you are 100+ Veteran that you can be pretty jaded and don't want to bother gratzing those that level that are below level 50. I see, this is another comment from the 100+ Veteran that doesn't care about their teammates because they are invincible. Sounds like you exhibit the behaviors that I noted that are not community friendly and are instead self-centered. I didn't say they just happened on Excelsior, I said "Things I see more on Excelsior" I didn't say I had more negative experiences on Excelsior than positive. I indicated that I saw more of what I consider to be bad behavior on Exelsior than the other servers. I quite often do. I don't know why you would assume that I didn't other than that somehow want an excuse that I'm the problem and not working to make things better. I wouldn't take my time to come here to the forums and point out what I see to be bad behavior because that is what this thread is about. The post is about bad behavior on Excelsior. I'm giving my own input on the bad behavior I see on Excelsior. I expect Excelsior natives/patriots to be defensive. So far there are are only two of you being defensive. I think that there are plenty on Excelsior know that I'm saying is correct or they would be chiming in. They aren't.

The behavior or Excelsior is different than the other servers in the same way Freedom was before the sunset because they are the most populous server. The most populous servers seem draw the dregs of a community. I know that sounds bad ... because it really seems that way to me. I play on Excelsior sometimes. Things I see more on Excelsior 1) rude behavior - which mainly comes down to language on one level or another - more rude, gross, crass, etc comment, discussions, etc. 2) lack of community things like gratz-ing someone when they level or thanking people when they tt you to another zone during a task force. 3) More Leroy Jenkins/Hulk smash kind of behavior. 4) Lack of knowledge that working as a team is better than blinding button mashing in the same way in every situation/team. 5) lack of restraint - rush into anything and don't want to retreat at all once the rush-in has occurred (aka would rather die and leave their teammates one member down then fall back and rest and then rejoin the group to help finish the fight). 6) "You have to give the star to the highest level player on the team" once a lower level has taken time to recruit for whatever. (This is NOT the best thing to do in many situations for multiple reason. Sure the higher levels have more powers but how many players on the team are going to be how many levels below the level of the enemies that they are fighting <--- that is a major disadvantage to a team. This is especially critical below level 35 or so.) I'm sure there are more things, but those are the things that I see that are detrimental to Excelsior that happen more often on Excelsior in my experience (I have characters on all the servers) Agreed.

I'm sorry I missed this. I'm sorry for the loss by their loved ones and everyone that gamed with them.

I think it's intentional. It was roll-over from before the sunset. The quick snipe reduces the interrupt time. Some people always seem to have problems getting a snipe shot off with the long interrupt. I thought it was cool so I thought I would slot it. It seemed pretty cool, but I didn't realize that Homecoming has already set it up so that it goes into the quick snipe mode when in combat. So yeah, it isn't very useful as it is effectively built-in at this point. Should they change it to do something else? probably. What would that be? I don't know. Maybe non-combat invisibility at such a range that it only works against enemy snipers - but then it would only be any use at higher levels.

whoops meant for some text in that, but can't seem to add it. Sometimes an origin/bio mutates over time, but even if the character origin is "I wanted to check out an ice/ice tank" ... well... that is the character's bio ... to begin with ...

....and I would have if it hadn't been for those crazy kids and that dumb dog!

I confess. I often have a character conception before I log into make a character. That includes at least the basic framework of the bio. But I guess that's a "Which came first the Creation or the Character Creator?" thing.

This is the part the kind of threw me off... (but I guess I did answer it already anyway, so...)