If someone had told me...

[Maagic]

If someone had told me back when I was beta testing COH (2005ish I think) that in 2020 I'd still be playing COH, on a HP laptop no less, I'da told them they wuz crazy. 

 

But that's exactly what's happened! I feel like I've rediscovered an old friend who has married/divorced/remarried and had kids. Lot has changed, but some things are still the same. I've got 3 characters to level 8 so far and had to take a break to tell everyone involved with Homecoming THANK YOU BEYOND WORDS for doing this. 

 

Sadly I wasn't able to raise a torch on Shutdown Day, so here is a pic I took last night. 

 

City of Heroes is dead. LONG LIVE CITY OF HEROES!!!

[Troo]

Welcome home!

[Snarky]

I rage quit when they announced the shutdown.  So I never really raised a torch either.  Glad you are back, this community is excellent.  They are even evolving the game, thoughtfully and carefully.

[VileTerror]

HA!  I think I saw you posing for that screenshot!  Which Shard are you on, Maag?

[biostem]

Welcome back!

[Maagic]

1 hour ago, VileTerror said:

HA!  I think I saw you posing for that screenshot!  Which Shard are you on, Maag?

Indomitable. I spent a good half hour last night up there going through all the emotes

[Abraxus]

It is a little on the surreal side when you think about it.  It was actually May 2004 when it went live, if memory serves, and I jumped in a couple of weeks later.  A group of friends that had already spent years playing Everquest, and boring me to tears about their exploits in that game when we would have lunch together, or attend the same social functions, decided they were going to jump to this game.  Some of them had participated in the Beta, and they thought this was the game they could finally get me interested in playing with them. 

 

I recall spending 3 hours in the character creator coming up with my first character before we were scheduled to start playing.  In fact, that is the one you see in my forum avatar pic, though he was less grandiose because costumes were much less elaborate (especially in the beginning) for low level characters.  The name took another hour itself!  When we actually started to play, and I found myself on the steps of Atlas Park, it just felt right.  Even though I had a tough time adjusting to the mechanics of game play in an MMO versus the first person shooters that I was most accustomed to at the time, I knew this is what I wanted to play, and everything else just fell away.  I played until the last few months before the shut down, and I always regretted not being there the night of the actual sign-off. 

 

Now, 7 years later, we have been given a rare second chance to play the game we love again, in a stable, well balanced, and supportive environment.  Is it perfect?  Are all of those things 100% across the board?  Of course not.  Nothing real ever is.  However, for the most part, we are a happy community doing things that a lot of folks can't seem to do in the real world.  That is, to come together to enjoy something, work together to accomplish things, and don't let our differences define what we do, or don't do here, or how we treat one another.  There is a lesson there somewhere, but I won't drift into that.  Instead, I'll just say that, after 15 years, there is no game I'd rather play, and no community that I'd rather be a part of to share it with. 

Edited March 1, 2020 by Abraxus

[DougGraves]

welcome back!

[Maagic]

4 hours ago, RialVestro said:

The game launched in 2004 so you would not have been beta testing a year after it already went live. 😉

 

I'm old, ok? 🙂 Plus I also beta tested CoV so the dates kinda overlap a bit. The CoH end of beta event was a hoot. All the devs hopped on in their respective avatars and proceeded to kick our butts halfway to Oroborous. I loved every minute. I did manage to land a punch on Positron though 😛

[Call Me Awesome]

1 hour ago, Maagic said:

I'm old, ok? 🙂 Plus I also beta tested CoV so the dates kinda overlap a bit. The CoH end of beta event was a hoot. All the devs hopped on in their respective avatars and proceeded to kick our butts halfway to Oroborous. I loved every minute. I did manage to land a punch on Positron though 😛

I didn't start until late 2004, I think it was early issue 3.  I do recall the beta of CoV but I wasn't in it... too invested in blue side.  In any case, Welcome Home!  The geriatric department is to your left.😉

 

Hmm, I'm not sure I've much room to talk... I hit level cap a few years ago.

[Riverdusk]

Ha, it is amazing.  I still have my original Beta invitation email saved in my old Yahoo account, partial sample below.  I remember being sold on it when my first character I ever made was dropped off in Galaxy City and I heard the loud thumping sound of music coming out of a car traveling down the road.  So different than all the fantasy MMO's.  It's the little things.

 

 

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

I first played on a friends pc and account and a few months later couldnt resist the call and became an active MMO gamer. My first characters oddly enough were  drawn from my years of D&D mainly, but that lasted all of a month. I got way into learning the lore of this game. I had a thing for learning about villain groups and finding ways to play them as heroic. For example one of my characters Demetrios Vasilikos was meant to be a Paragon Protector using a DNA memory core made from Doc Vahz. Kind of a what if you plucked Dr.Jekyll from Hyde and gave him a super powered body kinda thing. Then years later in a certain quest set in Praetoria who do I cross paths with right after its release while in a pug? Yep and suddenly people are asking wait whats going on, and I am lik read my bio page and you will understand who this guy we met is in our prime world. Then someone was like wait so this guy is doc vahz, and your like a clone of doc vahz? And I was like yeah more or less. Then someone was like wont they generic you? I was like pretty unlikely as the guy was just a hostage npc and Id made a few characters doing exactly that over the years with no issue.

 

Even my forum namesake, which was a name I actually did a paid name change for originally on a capped toon I leveled witha  generic name, as was a habit I developed to help justify throwing more money at the game via name changes. I asked for the name Bentley Berkeley even mentioned exactly were in game it was to be found with the request and it was approved with a nice little side comment from the admin who did, giving me props for wanting to use a name from the games lore like that. Which was similar to why the Dev Infernal and the Dev Ghost falcon would when i crossed their paths as certain characters end up becoming in game associates of mine Id play and chat with now and then till the game shut down. Both real nice guys btw, and like us just loved playing this game and role players to!

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Ha, it is amazing.  I still have my original Beta invitation email saved in my old Yahoo account, partial sample below.  I remember being sold on it when my first character I ever made was dropped off in Galaxy City and I heard the loud thumping sound of music coming out of a car traveling down the road.  So different than all the fantasy MMO's.  It's the little things.

 

 

 

There should be a "holy crap" emote as that was my response seeing that you still had this email.

[THEDarkTyger]

18 hours ago, Maagic said:

If someone had told me back when I was beta testing COH (2005ish I think)

2004. CoH released just a few months before World of Warcraft launched. But, yeah, I jumped into the open beta thinking I'd just amuse myself with it for a few days. Wound up buying it as soon as I could after launch. Only gaps in my playing during Live were when money was too short to pay for it. And I jumped at the chance as soon as I learned of the private servers going public.

 

Welcome home.

 

Oh, and ROLL TIDE!!!!

[EmmySky]

1 hour ago, THEDarkTyger said:

ROLL TIDE!!!!

My uncle moved to Alabama a year or two ago and his FB is full of this!  😀

[Dazl]

Welcome home. I to played from open beta till close and it's great to have the game back. Let's all pray that NCSoft and Homecoming work out a deal that makes it permanent.

[THEDarkTyger]

3 hours ago, EmmySky said:

My uncle moved to Alabama a year or two ago and his FB is full of this!  😀

I grew up in Alabama ( Huntsville ). I'm not really into sportball, but when you live in AL, picking no team is worse than picking the "wrong" team. 🤣

[Whodunit]

I beta Te

14 hours ago, Maagic said:

I'm old, ok? 🙂 Plus I also beta tested CoV so the dates kinda overlap a bit. The CoH end of beta event was a hoot. All the devs hopped on in their respective avatars and proceeded to kick our butts halfway to Oroborous. I loved every minute. I did manage to land a punch on Positron though 😛

I beta tested Ultime Online and Everquest. I think I may be older.

 

WB and RTR. I am just starting back also. 

 

Not sure how the pop and community is. Or if there are enough low levels to group with.

[MyriVerse]

I wouldn't have thought they were crazy. I would have thought AWESOME!

 

Heck, in 2005, I was still playing Atari 2600 emulators and stuff. And hey, EverQuest is still around like the "old" days, too.