Skyeye

Thank you to all the GM's and Devs. Thank you to all the returning players! I love this game and for some of us, it's a great help and stress reliever/inducer :) . Too many memories to mention here, but now, as well as my son playing, my grand son and grand daughter both made toons and I let them run wild. The joy on their faces is priceless and their smiles and laughter warm my heart! Thank you all sooooooo much!

Thank you my friend! In the VA there's a poster for mental illness that I loved when I saw it. It says " It takes a strong person to be a soldier, but it takes a stronger soldier to ask for help". I was blown away and thought wow,I could have used this a few years ago when I was really going through some issues. In case none of you know the average is 22 vets kill themselves daily across the US. Mental health with us vets is really in bad shape right now. My son has tried death by Cops twice since coming back from Iraq and OD'd and was brought back 3 times from death the last time he tried. I still have nightmares seeing 40 or more laser dots on his chest and still hear the helicopter overhead (not helpful toward my PTSD either). He did get help for his alcohol issues and his mental health issues and has been on the mend now with no incidents for 2 years (thank goodness!). I pray he stays healthy every day for his children and my daughter in law (and me and my wife). This war and these wars all over needs to end. We need our fathers, sons, mothers and daughters back. It only took the soviets 10 years to figure out it's a no win scenario (like Nam was for us) to get out. We have been there since 1990 and Afghanistan just slightly less. They (the Government) doesn't want to give Americans health care, but they could have paid for it over and over with the 29 years straight that we've been fighting all over the globe. What was the figure I saw for the cost-$500 billion a year? Enough is enough. It doesn't matter who we elect. They are all crooked and all work for someone else's agenda, but I better stop before I am called a conspiracy nut. We all believed and took the oath because we love this country and now it's time to bring everyone home. If the politicians want to fight, let them fight the leaders of the other countries themselves. Maybe if everyone got on here and let off some steam like I do the world would be a MUCH better place. Go -kill Skuls :) . I love you all my other family! My brothers and sisters from another mother, or mothers :) !!!!!!!!!!!!

Skyeye - this post, is the most meaningful post on these entire forums (as far as I am concerned). There are truly bigger problems in life than anything in CoH...and you are a Superhero for sharing your story with such honesty, grace and humor. I chuckled and wiped tears away as I read it. Thank you sharing it. I am glad you are surrounded by those who love, and that you have kept your humor despite such trying times. I love that you are still sharing your message of courtesy here on these forums. Hopefully we will play together one day, but regardless my hopes and prayers continue to go out to you and your family Thank you my fried and all the others for your wonderful words. I am sorry if I brought anyone down, it never was meant to do that. When someone asks me a question, I generally like to answer it directly. Lots of people play this game for lots of reasons. Mine may be different than yours and vice versa. Justice proved that yes we all call have different points of views and he explained it to me in a way which I could understand without berating me. Thank you sir! My main reason is the the time played helps ease my mind by distracting me with fun tasks and surrounding me with fun people and family to play with. I love the game and the family I have both here and on the game. A perfect example was the other day I (as a lvl 1 Warshade) went in to the AE building at atlas and asked for a group. I not only got a group, but also a super group for the new Warshade I made and some great and helpful advice from him and the Group he invited me to. In those hours played, I got to lose my problems, pains and fears for quite a few hours.... and it was pure bliss. God bless you all on here and thank your server owners and devs that own and run this place. Bless the friendly, helpful folks I have met on her and I will pray for the very few people that were kind of jerks on here towards me and others in chat, but you cant have great without the bad :) . At least the ratio on here is 1,000-1 great folks to jerks, but that's an awesome ratio that I would love to have on any MMORPG that I play. Thanks again for all the kind words and I hope to see you all on Excelsior where most of my toons are! Say hi to a stranger.... it might just be me! I am not a great player, but I love the game and always give a 100% (PS I also don't use gale to blow away all the tanks enemies like some people do LOL!!!) . I hope to see some of you online sometime!

This! This is one of the best posts about the freedom of expression and civility in these forums...+1 inf sir. I wasn't clear earlier, and usually when that happens, people get more antagonized...Much like talking about the right of free expression in these forums, I believe people have a fundamental "right" (it is a game, so I guess it's more of a privilege, but whatever) to level ANYWAY THEY WANT. I have zero problem with you level faster than me. And if you are enjoying it, I even applaud it. Your character, your playstyle is no less valid than mine. And if you are enjoying the ride, and there are people who are just frustrated that you are, then I would argue that your playstyle is MORE valid than theirs, because it is a game, and it should be for enjoyment, not frustration. In fact people who can't be respectful about it, have a playstyle LESS VALID than others... My point in my post earlier was merely to point out that for people who like to slog thru the content that there are challenges in the game for us as well. I often here the refrain that you can just turn off XP. Well that's true, but then for me it becomes all or nothing. I can have regular XP on or off. People who want to level quickly have many more options, like bonus XP at different levels. I would love to see a 1/2 XP plus 50% boost in inf option for those who want to play slow. People say DFB teams aren't hurting anyone. But that's not 100% true. The trial itself, the level quickly? That doesn't hurt me at all. Having to wait 30 minutes before my kiddo and I can start a TF because of the business of the LFG chat? That hurts, a little. Should we fix it? No...I don't see how, and it is there as much for DFB as anyone else. My kiddo and I have a supergroup, and he just learned about supergroup bases and is having the time of his life right now building one. I don't have any friends on the server, so I appreciate your kind gesture of teaming up. Please ping me, my global handle is justicebeliever. I hope you are just speaking about getting older (since all of time on earth gets more limited each year), but if it is something more terminal, please know that wherever, whoever you are, my prayers are with you. God bless! This is by far the most constructive conversation that I have ever had on any forum and I truly appreciate the replies and respect that you have shown me. I would love to play on here some day with you and your child/children. I could use a home for my many toons I make ( I am an Altiholic :) surprised huh? lol). It seems like your tenacity that you have on the forums that you would have been a good troop to have deployed with. I do get a lot clearer and more concise objective opinion now about you and your play style. It's nice that you explained to me so I got a better idea of your perspective. I understand now and you are also probably a type A personality- a real go getter who expects only the best from himself and others. I used to be that way to a point in my younger days, now lol not so much. Slow and easy for me now. Comfort over chaos and a Cadillac over a Ferrari now days (though I have never made enough to buy either of them HAHA!). I get you my brother in gaming :) Thank you for your prayers. I do need them and 100% know they matter. I am a proud Christian and I do my best to follow Jesus example. I am anonymous on here so I will tell you that yes I have a bad disease. I have an in-curable Cancer that is 100% treatable, but I just will never be able to get rid of it and I will one way or another eventually die from it (hopefully not for a while). I have an extremely rare version of blood cancer called Polycethemia Vera. It's the opposite of leukemia. My body makes way too many red blood cells. It causes my blood to thicken like gravy. It is treated by various things with phlebotomy (taking my blood out a pint at a time) being the most common. The cancer per say doesn't usually kill you. Heart attack, stroke, pulmonary embolisms and things like that usually get people like me first. If that doesn't kill me....then when my femurs (bone marrow) burn out of from overproducing red blood cells, I will develop AML leukemia, which is by the way, the horrible way my dad died 6 years ago, December first. I have done a lot of research on it. My dad had massive exposure to agent orange in Vietnam. This has been found to cause my type of cancer either at conception genetically or direct exposure to it when my dad would come back from work when I was a child living in Okinawa Japan (there are still millions of gallons buried/stored there that for years the government denied), but photographic proof came up and they decided to start finally taking care of the vets who were exposed to it. I believe that hugging my dad as a small child , that I was exposed to this horrible chemical. My dad fought the government 14 years for help with his medical issues because of it and 3 months before he was to receive a large settlement from them, he died of cancer. It wasn't until after he died I went to my doctor thinking I had gout in my thumb so he ran some blood tests on me and I waited for the results if I had gout or not to come back. In the mean time my doctor retired (which I knew he was prior to my visit to him). I was off work alone at home when I got a call that was left on my cell phone which was in the other room when they actually left a message on it for me. My wife was out with her sister and the house was empty. I walked into the bedroom and checked my phone to see if my wife had called when I noticed I had a message from my doctors office. The message went something like this (it was from a nurse in my doctors office)- "Hi Mr. (Blank) I am (Blank) from doctor (Blank) office. Your blood tests have come back and you have Polycethemia Vera so we have scheduled an appointment tomorrow at (Blank) Cancer Center. Your oncologist will be Dr. (Balnk) and he will see you at 2pm tomorrow." Click and she hung up. I actually didn't know what Polycethemia Vera was, but I sure as heck knew that a meeting at the cancer center with an oncologist was NOT the news I was hoping to get or expecting to be left on a message on my cell phone. Heck of a thing to learn (after Googling Polycethemia Vera) that you have cancer. I literally broke down and cried my eyes out for 15 minutes. I couldn't get a hold of my wife or anyone, so I just cried and cried. After 15 minutes my logical mind took over. I knew what facing death felt like I was a soldier. Man up I thought. We all die. We all have our own story, a beginning, a middle and an end. I would wait to talk to the doctor to get the real scoop on what I have. I talked to my doctor at the cancer center. He said that my hematocrit count was 87. I shrugged my shoulders because I had no Idea what that meant. He then went on to tell me that any reading over 50 was seriously high and dangerous. He actually was surprised that I was actually alive and asked me if I was on any meds. I told him no. He then asked me if I ever take any aspirin. I was like yup and he said how many do you take a day for pain. I said my knees and my ankle were destroyed in the service along with my hearing, so I would take 9 to 12 aspirin a day. He went on to tell me that that will destroy your stomach, but it probably saved your life. He the told me all about my cancer and said from now on you need to reduce your stress and stop working Grave shift, and I said so how much will you pay me to work for you then? He didn't find it funny, but I chuckled as my wife elbowed me in the ribs. He then basically told me to not exercise strenuously and not to raise my heart lvl to much and that if I don't drink alcohol that i should start and try to drink a few times a week to thin my blood out. He also said to continue with aspirin, just not as much. I thought wow! This is the best doctor ever! Don't exercise, drink and become a couch potato.... maybe my type of cancer wasn't going to be as bad as I thought. That first day there he had them take a pint of blood out of me. It took 2 hours and 45 minutes to get the thick blood out of me. and immediately I felt a lot better. The for the next 20 weeks 1 pint every week. Gradually he reduced it down to once a month. By then I had built up over $10,000 in bills after my insurance covered their part of it. I had to go to the VA and ask them if they could help me by letting me go there for treatments so I could save about $500 a treatment. God blessed me and I have been going regularly to the VA for my cancer treatment since. I am still in debt , but I am blessed in so many ways and I am happy to get to spend time with my wife, son and daughter in law, grand kids and my service dog Ralphie and my wife's dog Sofia. I have a roof over my head, live pay check to paycheck, have food in my belly and I am still here 5 years later. I love my life more now and appreciate things more now than I ever did before. God has TRULY blessed me and I thank him every day, multiple times. I hope I didn't bring you or anyone else down with my TLDR writing, but I figured it would be nice to tell my story to a bunch of random strangers who all have a common interest with me-COH Homecoming. One more blessing for me to be thankful for. We all have a story to tell and until you've walked a mile in someone's shoes or lived a day in someone else's shoes, remember they too have their own skeletons in their closets or their own crosses to bear. Remember that person in a drive through window really doesn't want to be there, they need the money. Same as your waitress or casino worker or Uber driver. We all have to work till we die because we are all basically slaves to the .01% of the people who OWN us all. The use us up as soldiers and slaves until they have drained us of our strength and youth, then they toss us out like trash. Happily we are ALL valuable and all mean something to someone or something in this life. Be nice to everyone and smile at someone today, because you have NO idea of what kind of hell they might be going through or how close to the edge they might be. A smile and a kind word go a long way to someone who has nothing. Remember that the next time you think how bad your day is or how bad your life is. There is always someone worse off than you or I. Common courtesy and a helping hand or a smiling face can go a long way....... so can a simple reply to a post. Thank you for your kind words, they meant a lot to me today ...God Bless you to my gaming brother!

Let me thank you for your service. You have the thanks of a grateful country, and mine as well as a former service member as well. I appreciate your passion, and I think I safely speak for most of us, that we are very happy to have our game back. I think that drives some of the passion on these forums...We've had the game, lost the game, and now have it back. I'm an avid lurker on these forums, so I feel very comfortable saying that any instances of someone attacking the Devs or Homecoming, I could count on 1 or 2 fingers. Most people here are VERY respectful of the development team As for each other, that can be a different story. Like family, many of us will argue, but then in the same breath we would team up with each other, or grab a beer after work together... There are definitely 2 sides to the too easy/too hard route. I personally am the "I think the game is too easy" type. I play routinely at a +2/+3 difficulty to challenge myself and make the game harder. The downside is playing at the level I earn a lot of XP and end up outleveling the content too quickly...So my only choices are NO XP or too much XP. It's fine, but not ideal...And there was a time when 90% of LFG was for DFB. That does make it hard to form a team for many people. Impossible? No. But LFG was not made for DFB, it was made to make teaming easier for ALL players, including DFB. And for us older players that don't have a lot of time to play, having to wait 30-45 min to form a group that is not DFB, makes it hard. I'm not complaining, but just pointing out that there are challenges for everyone Should people complain that you leveled faster than me because you are using AE to farm, or had a friend PL you, or you ran DFB to get to lvl 20 in 1/10 the time I did? No they should not. There is no shame in going slow or going fast. People will say silly things like "people who PL don't know how to use their powers", and that's a load of horsehockey. There are definitely people who don't know how to use their powers, but that's because they don't care or don't know to dive deeper into how the game works. I've seen that behavior in the game since day 1. Hell, I've been guilty of it as well. There are many veteran players here who know wayyyyy more about the game than I do, and they PL/Farm as well... Finally, Homecoming put these boards up specifically for people to voice their opinions. And that's awesome of them. And people voice their opinions in different ways. One of the big challenges is that tone is lost on the internet. What would not sound like a complaint in person, sounds like it to other people on the forums. For the most part, I just try to assume good intentions from the other poster, and take their words at face value without imparting too much emotion into them. It keeps my blood pressure down and reduce the number of arguments I get into... Again, welcome, and thank you for your service. Enjoy Paragon City, voted by Food & Wine magazine as the largest city with the fewest restaurants that are actually open Thank you for your direct and kind reply. Thank you also for your service! My whole family were soldiers going all the way back to my great great etc Grandfather who was a riverboat captain who ran cannon balls and cannons out of the Batsto NJ forge for George Washington to Trenton. (Heck my Dad did 3 tours of Nam, my uncle 2 tours of Nam, my grandfather was on the 4th wave at Normandy as a half track gunner, my great grandfather was in WW1 in the trenches and my great great grandad was in the Spanish American War oh and my son also served in Iraq... :) heck of a forever vigilant family huh?) To be honest I just seriously dislike harsh and hateful comments to anyone about anything. I guess I am old fashioned, but I think people should be more civilized towards each other and respond in kindness or don't respond at all. Like I said earlier The soldier in me also says people all have the right to say what they want and we are all guaranteed that right as Americans. I have and will always be willing to give my life for that to this day. I fought for you and every other American. If you hate our country, you have that right. You hate our president, you have that right. You want to burn a flag you have that right too and I would give my last breath for you all to be able to do so. I also truly believe what my mom used to say so long ago to me. Be careful when you're pointing your finger at someone because you have 3 fingers pointing right back at you. In other words, none of us come to the table with completely clean hands either. I respect your reply and I understand what you're saying, but also understand that some of us not only like the easy button for different reasons, some of us like to catch our toons up to friends on the game or lvl alts. I played this game since day one when it came out. It doesn't give me any more rights or insight into the game as you or anybody else, but like you, I am entitled to my opinions and if you want the "stuff" on this game to mean more to you because you had to play a 100,000 hours on here to acquire an accolade or badge, then it's just my opinion that maybe you might just want to remember all that "work" you put into getting something is purely intangible and not worth anything of value to anyone other than you for your time spent on getting said item or whatever. Like you and I and everyone else who played this game, we lost EVERYTHING that meant anything to us when NC Soft shut us down. I had a giant Black dog toon on here with white angel wings and a halo back in the day because I made him to memorialize my dog Toby when he died of cancer. People would send me texts and say with a tear in their eye pming me saying that they felt my pain. Do you remember how long it took to lvl a Peacebringer to 50 before the AE farms when there were gunners on every roof to one shot him where ever I took him? It took me a boat load of time and xp debt to get him to 50 back in the day and I cried when the game shut down because I felt like I lost Toby a second time. Heck I am old now. I have grand kids who sit and play this wonderful game with me now and the smile it puts on their faces is priceless. Do you want to make it hard for them to level too just so your stuff is more "valuable" than my grand kid's stuff because I helped them by using the easy button. Look I get your point. Every game has these two sides. Some people like to go as fast as the can to get to lvl cap (I'm not quite that way) and there are some people who believe that you have to "pay your dues" and play hour upon hour to get to the cap. Heck, honestly I wish we could automatically make lvl 50 toons so I could have one of each kind of archetype and play with others like I want to play, but that probably won't happen (even though I wish it would-lol my time on this earth is kinda limited now). We all know the coolest powers usually come at the later lvls and that's why I favor the easy button. If you disagree with me I also respect your opinion, but you can always turn down the amout of xp your earning if you feel its too easy for you. I would like the opposite kind of slider for me to make it super easy. Just my 2 cents and we will have to agree to disagree- but at least we can do it in a respectful manner. On a final note, I don't use the LFG tab for DFB, BUT .... that is where the Devs placed the button to que at and technically the people using said chat are actually looking for a group.......I get your point also about doing higher lvl stuff like TF's and other high lvl stuff and I can see why you are frustrated and I get that too. Do you have a super group? Do you have other friends on here? I am not being nasty or sarcastic, but if you don't maybe you should make one and a base..... Heck I'd love to join you for some fun , but sadly my highest lvl toon is 23 :( . I would also love to join your super group too because can you imagine how cool a base is when everything is free now (or does that make you mad too?)???? I just usually play with my son and/or grand kids and I haven't seen a base all decked out since 2012. Great quote on the end of your comments to me. Thank you for NOT berating me and that you for your respect and I am pleased to give it right back at you.

To all of the people complaining about this or that being too easy or too hard or complaining about people using the LFG channel for what is was made for or To the people complaining about bugs- Please, please stop complaining!!!!!!!!!!!! Let people play the way they want to play. If you don't like it leave. No one is making you stay and play. There are a lot of us old timers that can't play all day and night due to our real lives and our jobs. If you don't like to lvl so fast don't use the buffs. Turn of your exp rate or limit it, but please don't make this wonderful game and great community into your e-peen. Sorry some of us like doing DFB and DIB. Some of us like to get over the lower lvls quickly because we've done them a zillion times and we don't want to take forever to get up to lvl 20 where we are actually viable to solo missions by ourselves or pick up a group. Some of us enjoy the journey to 50 and some of us just want to join our fiends there at 50 as fast as they can. So leave us alone, Please These Devs and the people that run these servers are wonderful people who, are you ready for this, let us play their game they resurrected. They let old people like me with limited funds and who are disabled from the military enjoy the simple pleasure of this game that most of us haven't played for 7 years... My heart is still smiling that I can play a game I never thought would come back. :D To you devs and server owners out there I thank you from the very bottom of my heart for bringing back my most beloved game. You guys rock. I get a lot of people who thank me for my service and I appreciate that (even though it's totally unnecessary) and I tell them back with a smile you're very welcome. Well, this is me giving you the same compliment that I often receive, Thank you all for your service that you didn't have to give us , but you did anyway. I want you to know that there are only a few toxic people out here who if you handed them a bar of gold they would complain saying "this is too heavy" or "why can't you give me more or less" instead of just being grateful for having this opportunity to play or a "bar of gold". Thank you wonderful people so much! Complainers-Please let them know about bugs, but stop berating them! I haven't seen anything game breaking so far, but it doesn't mean it's not in here. Constructive comments work way better than complaints, so please complainers, give it a try nicely. Pretty please if that helps! To all you people complaining, I'll tell you what our instructors used to say to us. "Shut your pie-holes, you're letting your stupid show!" Keep up the fantastic job guys! Some of us have NO complaints, only happiness and praise. To the complainers-if it makes you feel better to call me names and complain to me- go ahead- I got big shoulders and your salty tears taste good to me and only make me happy because I faced death and you ain't it . You can't scare an old dog with nothing to lose. This awesome game makes most of us happy so for the sake of the 99.9% of us that are appreciative and love this game, move on please.... the egress is to the right.

Everyone come as a lvl 50 Master Mind and spawn all of our pets. That should test the server real well :) All joking aside, you guys are awesome! Thanks again.....I love this game!

:) Thank you all so very much!!!! I loved playing this with my son when he was a young teenager and now you have brought us back to those fun times long ago......TY TY TY! This runs great and we are so appreciative and thankful to you all at Homecoming..... it truly is a GREAT Homecoming!