Redmountain

I tried both CO and DCUO, in addition to many other MMOs after COH closed it's doors and honestly none of them ever caught on for me. I never did like CO's initial gear slotting and how you built out your powers, the goofy looking graphics, and just the lack of immersion with the game. With CoH I literally had a character I spent hours putting together, including a bio and building out their extra power pool and incarnate slots to fill out their character arc(and I did this with many characters) and I grew attached to my characters. I could never get that feeling with either CO or DCUO. Maybe it was just the fact I played COH for its entire existence and was just jaded to the other games, but they just never grabbed me. As an old pen and paper RPG player I just loved the amount of customization and input I had on my build. I loved trying new IO combinations, min maxing set bonuses to make my defender able to do amazing things solo'ing hard content, and just having so much flexibility with how I could build out my powers and character's overall performance. Were there builds and guides that were "the best" ? Sure...but that was also the fun thing about the game, you could make just about anything work. I didn't even really touch on COH's best aspect, which was the community. I've never been a part of such an amazing community since this game shut down. I think around the time COH shut down, the gaming community overall was starting to become jaded and entitled, and toxicity and elitism started to become a real issue in a lot of MMOs, especially the ones that were F2P. Part of what made COH attractive to me early on was the paid subscription, which to me made people take the game more seriously and just in general created a better community aspect. People were paying a monthly fee to enjoy the game, so they were going to be sure to make sure it was enjoyable for themselves and every one else. Even when it went F2P eventually, the community remained amazing, while with games like WoW the community was falling apart and becoming completely toxic.

Honestly the first day I played the game. It was my first MMO and I had debated for months on actually getting into it because I was in college with little money and it was a game you had to pay for and then pay a sub fee for and I wasn't sure I was ready for it, it seemed so...grown up. I must have picked up and read the box at the computer game store(yes we had those back then...) 5 or 6 times and then finally I bought it. I must have sat at the character creator screen for 2 hours that first night just trying to figure out what I wanted to make, then finally got in and did the tutorial. I was still clueless and just wandering around Atlas Park fighting mobs and then somehow accidentally sent a team invite to some level 50 that was nearby. I almost expected some kind of elitist rebuke or talk down for not knowing what I was doing, but instead this person asked me if I was new and when I said yes they spent the next hour showing me around Atlas Park, helped me get a few badges, basically taught me how the communication and chat system worked, explained some power and build basics and then gifted me a bunch of enhancements and some influence. I was really taken aback by their kindness since I'd never experienced anything like that before in gaming. I thanked them profusely and said being a noob level 4 I didn't have much to repay them with, and they simply said if I stick with the game and someday I'm a big level 50, just help out some new players and pass it along. That was my introduction to the community on the Infinity server, and essentially an indication of how the run of the game would go for me. COX to this day still had the BEST gaming community I've ever been a part of and there were so many amazing in game interactions like that one, but that will always stick out to me as one of the best in game experiences I've ever had in any game.

There was a time or two in Perez Park or the Hollows that I TP'd a couple of snot nosed toxic players into a group of +5s and smiled as I watched them die, then left the team. I used to run humanitarian patrols with my 50 through the newb zones and some people were just jerks about wanting to be rez'd after they forgot their inspirations. Sometimes I'd rez them and tp them back into a group of enemies that just killed them and laugh quite a bit about it.

It's sad that I can't remember my old handle or forum name, given how much time I spent on Infinity back in the day, but I had kind of buried COH and moved on after it was shut down so I forgot a good bit of it. Anyways...recognize a few of you, used to do a lot of the forum run task forces on weekends... Main two anyone might remember were: Simon Blaze - Fire/SS tank Emerald Lady - Rad/Emp defender Might try to jump on this weekend and see what all the fuss is about.