Let me explain why this game, just plain ol' MMO of a game. Means to me.
I was from Beta Blue till Sunset, Pre-HC, HC Day 1. This game has "LITERALLY" saved my life. I spent my first year on Triumph, mostly solo and not talking to folks. (Long before I realized about my Anxiety/Social Anxiety, Depression, PTSD, & OCD was revealed). When I moved to Virtue, I met a wonderful community there. I made friends, I made "family" there. I enjoyed everything we did, the talks, the laughs, the stupid shit we did. I had a very "STRONG" group there that I led and laughed with.
I helped many of them come out their own shells as I still hid in mine. I help some get married, others to grow up to fine adults, I made close "family" friends online. I looked foreword to every day gaming with them when I was not at work. When this game shut down, It put me in a funk(Mind you I had a mental meltdown before game release, was trying figure out how to put the pieces together, honestly game gave me a lot time to just slowly fix that with the others).
But then I was back to where I was, sure the really close friends have stuck it out with me, we've gamed and laughed. But I lost a lot of the community I was part of. I use to help out the Cape DJs, I would PL the RP'rs, even RP'd and ERP once(Man it was so boring, I was team leading on a Ill/Kin Controller on a +4 TF at the time). When I sent one my tells in team chat. ROFL, folks where laughing so hard, they was JJ, your Team Leading a +4 TF on an Illusion Kin, bullshitting with us, working on a Mid's Build and doing that, ROFL my guy your skilled. While it was face reddening, it was also funny. (I never even enjoyed ERPs, but someone wanted to try it out with me).
So I was left alone in my thoughts again, RL was breaking me hard, my physical health was getting worse(Found out I have nearly a fully arthritic skeleton back then and start of disk degeneration). I lost my job at the time, do to all pain I was in, I couldn't show up, so they let me go(11yrs down the drain). I was ready to just say fuck it. I had huge bottle of pills and a handle of Jack Daniels, I was not going stop till I didn't wake up.
Well, odd thing here. One my close buds, who never has called me before IRL, just us bullshitting online, called me that day. Few hours before I was going start. He just said he had odd feeling and his brain said to call me. He coaxed out of me what I was going to do. After a hours of talking, he and his family moved out of my state to their state and help me set myself up near them. Hell their daughter calls me Uncle J. (I''ll kill for that goofy niece of mine, lol).
Since then return of CoH, it still means a lot to me. But honestly not as much as it did. While I agree our community is still better then most MMOs, it's far from what it was. A lot of anger and vitriol rolls around in it, I've seen it directed at me in spades. Which in turn causes me to seethe and let some of that out on others here, I hate when that happens, I honestly do. As folks have heard, I suffered a spinal/heart injury that put me on SSDI, So I have nothing but time on my hands and spend a decent amount in CoH.
I try help/teach as best I can to our new players, but honestly. The troll accounts that bomb me at random times with hate filled words, causes me to always play less & less and not want to interact with our "Community" most time.
But just as that last era ended of the Virtue Crew of Good TImes(Many of them have passed on or have just flat out vanished). I have found a small group of folks here that still keep me coming back. So if you see @JJDrakken in game, say hi. If you get no response. I'm very distracted/focused or busy telling someone to piss off, cuz they wanna be asshat to me or the team I'm leading. 😉
Y'all be well.
