Homecoming Server Update (April 24th): Anniversary!

[Jimmy]

We're One Year Old!

It’s April 24th - exactly one year since Torchbearer, the first Homecoming shard, came online for the very first time - and conveniently, also only a few days shy of the 16th anniversary of City of Heroes’ retail launch.

 

Looking back, those first few weeks were both immensely exciting and extremely chaotic for our community. It’s been a very long year for all of us, and we’ve come a long way - 5 shards, nearly 170 thousand accounts, over 1.3 million characters created and 5 major updates - with more to come!

 

None of this would’ve been possible without the incredible support of our GM team, so we would also like to take this opportunity to extend a special thank you to all of our Game Master volunteers - both past and present - for your time and dedication over the past year. We wouldn’t be able to do this without you.

 

And now… some festivities!

 

16th Anniversary Badge: Resurgent
Following the vote earlier this month, Resurgent has been chosen as the name for the anniversary badge this year. Any character that logs in during the month of May will automatically receive this badge.

 

Resurgent

 

During the month of May all previous anniversary badges are also available to purchase from Luna in Ouroboros for 100 Reward Merits each.

 

 

Invasion!
Starting… now, Rikti invasions will be taking place all over Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. They’ll be here for two and a half weeks - until server maintenance finally defeats them once and for all on Tuesday the 12th of May.

 

 

Anniversary Contests
@GM Miss is hosting two contests to help celebrate the anniversary!

• Anniversary Screenshot Contest: Starting today and running until May 1st, we’re asking you to submit your favourite screenshot from the past year.
• Anniversary Costume Contest: On May 2nd we’ll be hosting an anniversary costume contest! Many prizes will be up for grabs, including permanent costume powers.

 

And that’s all for today. Thank you for joining us on this amazing journey - this is only the beginning.

 

- The Homecoming Team

[Cinnder]

Thank you to everyone who has made a return to our City possible!

 

(Also, nice work on the Rikti dialogue bubble above)

[Rathulfr]

Thank you for a year of wonder and fun, and for bringing back this game!

 

[Force Redux]

A thousand thanks and then some, for a wonderful year of both nostalgia and new adventures alike! 🙂🙂🙂

[Antarticaa]

Thank you thank you thank you  for making this possible!  Who knew that in bringing back CoH, not only did you bring back the game and community that meant so much to us but that you'd provide a much needed stress relief service during a world-wide pandemic!

[Lunchmoney]

I share my birthday with City of Heroes 👍

[BZRKR]

WooHoo! Thank you for all of the hard work!

Let's zap some Rikti!

[SpeedSeeker]

48 minutes ago, Lunchmoney said:

I share my birthday with City of Heroes 👍

Same!!!

[McCavity]

The return of COH still feels like a Miracle, and thanks the the Homecoming Team, a miracle with New Stuff too !!
Blessings and thanks to all of you, for all you did to get this up and running again, and all the incredible support you provide each and every day!!   Bravo & Huzzah!!  

 

[The Bobby Llama]

4 hours ago, Jimmy said:

We're One Year Old!

It’s April 24th - exactly one year since Torchbearer, the first Homecoming shard, came online for the very first time - and conveniently, also only a few days shy of the 16th anniversary of City of Heroes’ retail launch.

 

Looking back, those first few weeks were both immensely exciting and extremely chaotic for our community. It’s been a very long year for all of us, and we’ve come a long way - 5 shards, nearly 170 thousand accounts, over 1.3 million characters created and 5 major updates - with more to come!

And even with all the hiccups we had at the start, we loved it!

 

For those of you who weren't here at the time, here's the Homecoming: Week One Experience™:

Spoiler

1. The login servers were often too busy to process requests, so your login would fail.
2. Costumes would fail to load for character select.  The game client would hang while it waited for the costume, then it would give up and show a white featureless placeholder costume instead.  You got to wait for this process every time you clicked a character!
3. They turned on server queues to help with the load, but the queues would stay active even if the servers went down.  You could wait in line for hours for a dead server!
4. But most importantly, once you actually got in, having the game back was bliss!  Everyone had to relearn the game again and nobody was geared out.  Every group you got on was messy and struggling, really reminded me of the old days!

Please note that this is all meant in good fun, of course, and not as criticism of the HC team.  Demand for the game was clearly way beyond what they expected!

 

[OX]

Thank you and will there be any new Rikti invasion badges by chance?

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by OX

[Kallisti]

Those first few days were chaotic but glorious! To be able to run around Atlas Park again blasting Hellions... it brought tears to my eyes! I was able to log on and re-create my first ever character again on that first day and get a few levels... nobody was doing DFB, everyone was doing the early missions or just chasing mobs, it was incredible! Then on the second day the dreaded queues struck! I remember getting into the queue at a position in the 1200s and by the end of the evening I'd got down to about 400... then within a couple of days they opened Everlasting, Excelcior and all the others and now somehow a year has passed and I've now got 8 level 50 Kallistis, one of which is capped out on badges and I'm STILL loving the game!!!

 

Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen! Especially at a time like this, a distraction from the real world as marvellous as City of Heroes is a miracle!

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by kallistiuk

[Stunrunner]

I remember the Bree server.

 

Get on my level, newbs.

 

/s

 

*raises a toast to CoX*

[Veracor]

Happy birthday, Homecoming!

[Rathulfr]

20 minutes ago, Stunrunner said:

I remember the Bree server.

 

Get on my level, newbs.

 

/s

 

*raises a toast to CoX*

I was there, too, when The Great Panic occurred. 😆

[VileTerror]

I was watching the news closely with Bree, but never worked up the nerve to join it.

When I learnt about the takedown due to the threat of legal action, I caved.  I realized:  I may have just missed my chance to ever play the game again.  A game which had such a monumental impact on my life!

 

And then the person who told me about Bree told me about Homecoming.

Check out my sign up date.

 

SO!

Thanks.  Thanks to Jimmy.  Thanks to the whole Homecoming Team.  Thanks to the GMs.  Thanks to the players.  Thanks to whoever it was that put their livelihood on the line and leaked the game in the first place.  Thanks to the whistleblower who revealed SCoRE.  Thanks to Leandro for keeping the lights on (even if it was in a box far from most people's sight).  Thanks to the original Developers who made this game what it is.

It's already worth it, for the year of enjoyment and memories, even if the worst comes to pass and it's all gone again tomorrow.  But let's also keep working together and strive to make the City even greater than ever before!  Don't stop being awesome!

[tweedledee]

thank you for making it possible for me to fly again... I love this game so much!!!... thank you to all who made this possible...

[Noyjitat]

Here's to many more years.

[Camel]

It’s been said many times before, but thank you, from all of us. I’ve played many a game in my 27 years and nothing has ever given me the experience CoH does. This game means so much to so many and we are so grateful! 
 

Much love, 

Caz

[GoldenAvariel]

My first character was created on 4/26... I came as fast as I could and was able to get logged on! It was certainly chaotic then with long waits that sometimes resulted in losing your character trying to get into the game - my wife and I learned to save our costumes prior to going into game. It's been a wonderful year of playing our favorite game we thought would never come back. Thanks to everyone working on it!

 

But, guys, I'm disappointed. Only 1.3 million characters? That's only like 7 or 8 characters per account on average. Slackers. 😉

 

[pbwill200]

On 4/24/2020 at 8:48 AM, Jimmy said:

During the month of May all previous anniversary badges are also available to purchase from Luna in Ouroboros for 100 Reward Merits each.

100 merits seems a little steep. Can you make it 50 instead?

 

~1500 merits to get all the badges is a grind.

[Troo]

Woot!!

 

"Look at you! Happy happy.. you don't look happy"

 

well.. maybe you'll be happy if we talk about energy melee and reverting energy transfer? Right?!

[QuiJon]

On 4/27/2020 at 9:40 AM, pbwill200 said:

100 merits seems a little steep. Can you make it 50 instead?

 

~1500 merits to get all the badges is a grind.

Not just that but that is in one month time period. That would be averaging like 47 merits a day going to nothing but badges that do nothing. Frankly I feel like we should be automatically given like badges 9-14 after all we were not all "invited" to play the game back then anyway. But even if not, why not make the badges rewards for actually playing the game and let the merits be further reward and we can keep them to buy the things they are meant to buy. Assign one of these badges to each TF and SF in the game as a bonus award for doing the TF or SF in the month of may. We earn them by playing the game, and the merits we earn we get to use for building our characters. But as it is these badges do nothing but cost the same as an ultra rare IO is not really cool. 

[Glacier Peak]

10 hours ago, QuiJon said:

Not just that but that is in one month time period. That would be averaging like 47 merits a day going to nothing but badges that do nothing. Frankly I feel like we should be automatically given like badges 9-14 after all we were not all "invited" to play the game back then anyway. But even if not, why not make the badges rewards for actually playing the game and let the merits be further reward and we can keep them to buy the things they are meant to buy. Assign one of these badges to each TF and SF in the game as a bonus award for doing the TF or SF in the month of may. We earn them by playing the game, and the merits we earn we get to use for building our characters. But as it is these badges do nothing but cost the same as an ultra rare IO is not really cool. 

I think the Anniversary badges have been implemented fairly and effectively through the mechanic of playing the game to acquire Reward Merits. 

 

I am happy that these badges are available at all. In reality, most badges have no tangible value beyond how the player views them. That being said, in the past week of playing casually (about 2-4 hours/day of TFs/Badge Hunting/PuGs/Hami & RWZ Raids) I have gone from 0 Merits to 1000 Merits.

[QuiJon]

58 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I think the Anniversary badges have been implemented fairly and effectively through the mechanic of playing the game to acquire Reward Merits. 

 

I am happy that these badges are available at all. In reality, most badges have no tangible value beyond how the player views them. That being said, in the past week of playing casually (about 2-4 hours/day of TFs/Badge Hunting/PuGs/Hami & RWZ Raids) I have gone from 0 Merits to 1000 Merits.

Not everyone can make hami raids which is where the vast majority of those 1k merits likely came from. Most TF earn around (on average) 25-30 merits per hour unless there is something unique about the TF t hat makes it tougher then normal. So even at 30 you would be talking over 3 hours of play PER badge. I mean I can run 3-4 ITF task forces and have a very high probability of NOT getting a purple drop from all those mobs killed. And yet if I do then now I have to decide between wanting a vanity badge, half of which I had already earned on live for real or buying a purple, or a mess of converters or all the other things I do with merits. I have ran through paragon city and gotten every explore badge and plaque in less time then it would take me to earn 1-2 of these badges. 

 

Like I said I have no problem playing for them. Why I suggested attach them to each TF as a reward menu like at Christmas time where when I complete a TF I can choose a badge as a reward. Hell even have that be in place of merits atleast then they only cost me time and one run of merits per badge. But 100 per badge is insanely high cost and not in line with the spirit of this game and its casual focus during its life span.