Megajoule

I remember when the respec trial first went live, back in Issue 2, it was run by a lot of people who actually (desperately) needed it to fix their builds. It was not uncommon to see full teams pop out of the front doors and faceplant on the pavement.

Nah, the Row ain't dead. Times are tough - when aren't they? - but the Row's seen worse.

Sorry, not my intention. More like "and we are still here, ten years later."

One last bump, as we round the final turn. Anyone have plans to mark the occasion this Wednesday?

"Surprised to see me?" "A little. I'm more surprised that I lived so long." "Batman, Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne, Batman. Or have you met?" "Not now!" "Great. What did they used to call it, 'stereo'?" I'm going to miss him terribly, but he gave us so much. Rest in peace. (and %^&@ cancer)

TRADITION! (tradition!)

or an Echo. (Galaxy City feels a lot like that to me, even now.)

And here we are again, in what was once the Last Month. I was chasing badges on a few characters and trying to preserve something of the game; I managed to record demos of all the zones (I still have that archive). Many were wrapping up their own projects, or saying their goodbyes. A few still hoped for some last-minute reprieve. And through it all, we still had jobs and other things to attend to on the other side of the screen. On Virtue, some of the well-known players got together to organize one last big event and write our own ending: a "crisis crossover" with a massive super-battle to hold off -- Rularuu? the Battalion? both? I forget -- while others worked to shift that Earth off into its own little bubble of spacetime (or dreams) where it might, might survive the oncoming multiversal apocalypse. My recollection is that it was very chaotic (as most such things are) but ultimately "successful", and a lot of fun. Does anyone else have stories or memories to share of the Last Month?

IIRC, there was also a certain amount of "Not Invented Here" involved - that's a Western game, a game the Western market likes. Not worth supporting when only the domestic (Korean) market truly matters. And when some of their properties there started performing less well, what's the first place to start making cuts?

On August 31, 2012, we all got the bad news: in a few months, City of Heroes would be shut down. ("Sunset", they called it. Such a lovely euphemism.) I found out shortly after noon Pacific time, browsing the official forum at lunchtime on a quiet pre-holiday Friday. Somehow I kept it together for the rest of the day. My plans for that evening, and the weekend, went out the window; I logged in not to play but simply to try to connect with people, to vent and commiserate and trade contact info. By Sunday, I couldn't even manage that - I had to stand up and walk away from the computer, do chores, go outside and reassure myself there was a world out there that would keep spinning past November 30. With that bit of respite and self-care, I was able to get back into the forums and the game that night and the next day (Monday, September 3, Labor Day), still crying and grieving but also smiling and even laughing now and then. There was a cross-server vigil, the first of many, and some people (including Samuraiko) were gathering data for demos. I liked one comment (by @Ironik) enough to record it in a journal entry: Monster Child: When I first logged in to the City of Heroes beta, the very first thing I saw was a cop running down the street waving his arms and screaming like a little girl because of a misplaced sound effect. I thought: "This city needs me." Monster Child: Now I realize that I need it, too. As for me, I made a vow that weekend: "This game let me fly. So I'll fly. Right up 'til the end." And I did. Shortly after midnight on 12/1/2012, when Virtue finally shut down, Miss Megajoule was in the air over Atlas Park. And now, ten years later... here we are.

At least one of my characters (the one in my forum avatar, and my first ever) is "merely" an ordinary superbeing - a mortal scientist (well, grad student) who acquired Strange Powers and Abilities in one of those all-too-common lab accidents. She possesses no divine spirit nor embodies no grand concept; in any contest of gods (or demigods) she'd be well-and-truly outclassed. And yet, due to the Incarnate system as implemented here, she's been unlocking slots (which I haven't filled) ever since she hit 50. If you check some of my earliest posts on this forum, you'll see I was rather annoyed by that, and have done my best to ignore it - on that particular character - ever since. (Another of my characters, the Spirit of the Row, is a (small) god in his own right - a genius loci - and gains his powers not from the Well, but from his own land and people. Another is basically a tulpa, a being willed into existence by collective need and belief. This city takes all kinds.)

And it was not uncommon for those poor people to outright fail it. I'd be standing around outside the entrance and see the doors open and a full team would pop out and faceplant on the pavement. 😲 Things I miss (and don't, but still remember): The original character select screen, with custom flairs for each Origin (back when those actually almost mattered). I'm getting a little too far from my mentor! My mentor is assisting me again. Related to the above, having to play sidekick/exemplar tetris to get everyone on a TF, and praying that no one dropped in the middle. The street fights between Fifth Column and the Council when the latter were introduced, and how the devs insisted the replacement of the former with the latter wasn't because of the then-imminent release of CoV (only to admit, years later, that it totally was - and for reasons that became moot as development continued). Travel powers at 14, Stamina at 20. The content drought (desert, even) in the late 30s, when you ran out of all of your Issue 0 arcs and missions and had to grind your way to 40 and the start of Issue 1 content in Peregrine, often by street-sweeping. Outleveling story arcs, with no way to go back and complete them. 😞 Playing a Taxibot. 🙂

Yeah, the game likes to throw these encounters at you now and then. "So, you think you're hot stuff (literally, in your case)? Try this on for size." And sometimes you beat it (by the skin of your teeth, and have to take a moment in-game and out to catch your breath afterward), and sometimes you wind up eating floor, and medi-porting out, and coming back (a little wiser and more cautious) to dish out some payback. Welcome back. Glad you're having fun and getting some help and good advice.

Yeah, back when this feature first went live, the official story left me incredulous. "Sure, I'm gonna go stick my head in that."

(edit: wrong image)