And I wept

[Tasugare]

I started playing City of Heroes two weeks after launch and lost the summer of 2004 to the game. I pulled eight or more friends into the game and we played together over the course of its life. I was so enamored with the experience that I wrote a couple of short stories for the back of the City of Heroes comic book. I was in love in a way I never expected from a game.

 

I'd call it a gateway drug to other MMOs, but honestly, I was always chasing those first highs; the first time I was able to fly in the game, the first time I played a Warshade, the first time I won a costume contest in Atlas Park, my first Hamidon raid, my first base when we discovered the stacking glitch. No game matched those levels of exhilaration or sense of reward. Every time I thought the game reached its zenith, they figured out another way to give it more life. 

 

I was also there when the servers went dark, holding a torch, and I was heartbroken because the blow felt inhumanely savage. I suddenly missed the game more than I realized, and I pined for it and even had dreams about it years later. I heard about the private server through my coworkers, but I never managed to get an invite, though I *may* have snuck in a session or two on my friend's account.

 

All that to say, I am so grateful to the people involved for this moment. I work in videogames, and it's so easy to lose sight of that foundational element that brought us into the industry in the first place... to have fun playing and making games.

 

So to the people involved in all this, thank you for making this possible. I haven't had fun like this in nearly six years.

 

It's good to be back home with family.

[TargetOne]

THIS.

 

At the end of the day, after all the drama and strife, after all the legal issues, after all the arguments and accusations, THIS is the only thing that matters.

[_NOPE_]

Welcome back home, Tasugare and TargetOne.

[Tasugare]

Welcome back home, Tasugare and TargetOne.

 

Thank you, TargetOne, and great to see you around Philotic Knight. I remember you back from way in the day when I went by Battleknight.

[Kaliselia]

I started playing several days after it first came out.

 

I was the Favorite Local Gaming Store (FLGS) and it had some computers and someone was playing it.

 

He was a gun toting blaster and he was only level 2 and jumped over a wall and a Higher level Clockwork mob dropped him in one shot.

 

I was sold right there and I went out and got the game the very next day.

 

It was my very first MMO (WoW was my 2nd).

 

Well I am back in the game and last night I created my first two new Heroes:

 

Stormwillow - Electric/Energy Blaster (Blapper)

 

Mister Klean - Super Strength/Invulnerability Brute

 

Tonight I will be creating a Staff Scrapper

 

I will probably spend a bit of time creating Heroes until I have around 4-5 and than I will go and level Stormwillow up.

[THEDarkTyger]

I am with you, Tas. A lot of us are. I played since Open Beta and, aside from an absence in the middle due to financial issues I absolutely could not spare the sub fee during, I played til the servers shut down. I had begun to give up hope of ever seeing an active Paragon City again, resigned to only the Paragon Chat allowing me to walk empty maps. The news of this server nearly had me in tears.