Favorite CoX Memory Contest Winners!

[GM Miss]

Thank you guys for sharing your amazing memories with us. It reminded me how far we have come from live all those years ago and yet we are all still one of the most amazing MMO communities out there. 

 

🏆 Here is our winning CoX memory from Chuckers on the forums: 🏆

 

"I had been playing CoH since just after it went live in stores. It was a little more than 2 years and I still hadn't gotten a "50." The joke in my SG was that when I hit 50, I wanted a parade and fireworks. We were playing at night of the 4th of July. Capt. Colorblind, my main - an Energy/Fire blaster, hit 50 in a cave mission - while face-planted, no less. As I was cheering and being "grats-ed", I heard the park down the street from my apartment lighting off their 4th Fireworks. So, while I didn't get a parade, I got my fireworks!"

Here are our runner ups!

 

Submission by Shock Factor on Discord:

“Back on live, was on an 8 person team doing a mission that we had to enter by boarding the train.  My son and I had been playing non stop for about 12 hours and were at a point where were laughing at everything. The AV was brutal, and at the end 7 of us were facedown and my son the Stone Tank was the last one standing and he finally took out the AV.  We exited the mission, and when we stepped off the train 7 of us dropped facedown on the floor.  Another player standing in the station says "Um, I think I'll wait for the next train."  We were laughing so hard at that my wife woke up and asked "What's so damn funny?"  Which just made us laugh until I about fell out of my chair.”

 

Submission by Akeela on Discord:
“I beta tested CoV, played CoH while awaiting launch. At the time, it was me, my (then GF) of 6 years, and our 1 in 18 million, by way of profound disabilities son... Josh. While it was the opinion of most medical personages that Josh would never walk, talk, see, nor hear...we did not believe. Josh was always at my side...still is...but would watch me play CoX intently; after a few months, one day, he reached for the KB...so we let him try. Within a week, he learned WADS, arrows and Space...enough to play...and thus began the FIRST ever demonstration of his sight, and propensity to learn. This game...gave my son a life and I will NEVER forget it.”

Submission by Giocondi on Discord:

"I'd have to go with a memory back when the game was live. I was a young man at the time and this was my second MMO ever behind Everquest. My dad took me to best buy to get my first ever dedicated graphics card. I knew nothing about upgrading parts and my dad opened up my rig at the kitchen table and hooked up this probably very mediocre GPU. I remember firing up my PC and logging into my COH account. Behold, before my very own eyes, my character select screen had transformed to a gallery of truly super heroes in the most exquisite, shiny detail. I remember loading into to Talos Island and just running around spamming my abilities with such giddy fascination. This game, even today, just has a special magic about it."

Winners I will be in touch with you on your respective platforms with prize information! Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest and to those who bonded over shared experiences! 

[GM Miss]

Since you guys shared your favorite memories with us, I wanted to get the GM team to share theirs with you. Some are over 250 words, oops! Enjoy! 

GM Miss:
My favorite memory is from Homecoming. After hearing the familiar clinking of the keys as they typed in my password -I loaded into Atlas Park after creating my character and headed towards the sewer - I never even stopped to look at my map - I knew where it was. I had seen it in my dreams and could remember it like the back of my hand. I found a team within minutes and we headed down the sewers in a league that was decimating everything it touched. I took the first left - then right - then a left...and I wept. I knew from that second I wanted to be a part of the team that brought this back into my life. It was later the next day I signed on as a GM and the rest is history. Thank you for being a light in an often times dark world - I am grateful every day I get to enjoy this journey with you. 

GM Arcanum:

Like so many players, I have some incredibly fond memories of this game. When I first started playing it was on a toaster oven that could barely run the game; let alone the handle all the nifty FX. It was so bad that my first character was perpetually stuck in Skyway City because it couldn't handle zone transitions (try getting to 50 in Skyway...). However, I never cared one bit. I would sit patiently waiting for hours to get that toaster running just to fly through Paragon. The best part of the game then and now, has always been the community of players supporting it. I used to have SG mates make new characters and disable their XP so they'd be stuck in Skyway with me, until the day I could finally break free. (Which I eventually did with the help of a few part-time jobs and a hardware upgrade). The fact that this game found its feet again after being offline for almost a decade is incredible and a true testament to its player base. Flying the skies of Paragon City - with my cape swirling around me while the fanfare plays...it isn't so much a favorite memory as it is a dream. Thank you to all the incredibly talented people who made it possible to fly the skies again! Its truly amazing to be a part of this City of Heroes!

 

GM Sparky:

My strongest memory is my first day. I had never before played an MMO. So, I had decided to buy the hero and villain edition and install this game. After an entire evening of installing and getting it set up, I was finally able to create my first first character. That. Was. A. Nightmare. More than an hour later, I loaded into Mercy Island, having skipped the tutorial like the brilliant genius that I obviously was. I made a Fire/Thermal Corruptor. And was standing there not knowing how to even walk around! I started poking around with the mouse clicker - eventually clicking things in the power tray. Many of the buttons did nothing, but eventually I found the Pocket D teleport power! The lines of light started forming out from my fists as my excitement grew. This was the world shattering moment of susper hero power that I was waiting for! Suddenly, I was standing in an unfamiliar room, decorated in Tiki Torches. And I still didn't know how to walk around! 30 or so minutes later, I finally figured out how to walk around and how to talk in the default local. And I got lucky and saw another player! They were nice enough to show me how to leave. I found the door out, and dumped right on top of a group in the midst of a full on Rikti Raid with heavies. So many things were suddenly happening at once, and my speakers were absolutely screaming at me. That group later invited me to their SG, and showed me all the ropes. The pocket healer for that group later became my wife. And we all still play together here on Homecoming. Except for our friend Rusty who died before seeing our game come back online.

 

GM Conviction: 

I have so many great memories of CoX. From the release of capes, to rushing home from the gang’s annual trip to a local haunted forest so I play on the first day of CoV, to going HeroCon and learning all about Going Rogue. But, my all time favorite memory was the day the Halloween event first went live in 2004. I met up with SG mates after work to go Trick or Treating. It was so much fun and such a unique way for a game to celebrate the holiday. I laughed out loud when I got a rock. Just the little details added into this game like that through away line from the Charlie Brown Halloween special is why I love this game even to this day. And why the Halloween event still is my favorite event.

 

GM GoodNyght:

When my husband and I, both lifelong superhero comics fans, first starting playing COH back in 2005, I was thrilled. It was my first Superhero game - my first computer game, really - and playing our very own heroes was so exciting! Early on, playing the Firefrost arc in the hollows for the very first time, we teamed with a couple playing Kheldians. We fought beside them, they in their Khelidan ‘Dwarf’forms, through the missions in the Hollows until Firefrost and his minions had been defeated.
Then we went all back to play in the room with the huge ice-slides. I remember to this day the magic of watching the two Khelidan players convert to their Nova forms, fly up to the top of the ramps, convert to Dwarf and drop to slide down -- and then, as the end of the ramp threw the Dwarf-forms back up into the air -- gracefully convert to Nova and do it again, and again.
I just stopped and watched, entranced. The grace and happy playfulness of it was like watching an aerial ballet, an unexpected and beautiful marriage of player and environment. It gave me my first inkling of how this game is so much more than things to hit - how the CoV enviroment and the player community to this day make every moment spent there truly special.

 

GM Laufeyjarson:

I was on my first character, a Scrapper, just after Issue 2. He was just entering Terra Volta, and everything was too much for him. So, found a team. Random pick-up group, doing missions. We all had a "defeat way too many Sky Raiders" mission. We were standing on the ground, looking at the Sky Raiders who were all far overhead. The blaster could almost snipe one. Just as the team lead is saying, "How are we going to get to them?" one falls to the ground in front of her, thanks to my Air Superiority. Team lead then said my favorite thing ever, it still makes me smile: "Oh. Our scrapper can fly."

 

GM Korvin: 

I only found out about the game post-live when a friend told me about Homecoming - a friend of theirs played during live and told them about it - so my memories are relatively fresh ones. Honestly I can't think of any one distinctive memory that sums my experience up - a general feel is more accurate of a description; of picking up the game, learning its flow, its mechanics, and of course its community and all that it entails.

Across the way I somehow got sucked into the costume creation process, of which I think I've gotten a decent grasp at, along with creating optimised and thematic builds...and even managed to become part of the team that helps to keep Homecoming running smoothly - a far cry from the player who got lost running from city zone to city zone without knowledge of the monorail or travel powers, and stayed away from the realm of IO set bonuses and enhancements. So really, the memory I'm putting down is the changing experience over time of falling into a very broad and expansive MMO.

 

GM Frank:

Sort of a weird double memory:  My very first character was ZapMan on Justice server.  His original costume was atrocious.  When I got my first new costume slot (and ran the cape mish) I made him a costume I was proud enough to show off.  Coincidentally, there happened to be a CC under Atlas shortly thereafter.  I came in 2nd and in the process befriended one of the organizers, Echonis.  He invited me to join his SG.  As time went on I became 2nd in command until Echo eventually left the game when I took over until sunset.

I discovered HC in August last year and chose Indomitable as my new home server based purely on the name (same reason I picked Justice so many years ago).  Even there, the name ZapMan was already taken, so I made an homage character: his daughter, ZapGirl.  I was playing her in the middle of the night, like 2 AM, and randomly joined a radio team in Bricks of the appropriate level.  My jaw just about hit the floor when I saw Echonis was on that very same team and we had a great time catching up.

When I think about the odds of bumping into eachother like that it just reminds me how special this game was to so many people and how glad we all are to be back.

 

GM Brax: 

My absolute favorite memory is one of the first I have of CoH.  A group of my friends, who had been playing Everquest together for years, told me that they had been in the Beta for CoH, and that after years of me telling them I wasn't interested in their fantasy genre game, and having to listen to them talk about it whenever we got together; that I could finally join them in playing this game!  They knew I loved the super hero genre, and this was our chance to finally be able to play together, and have discussions that were inclusive of ALL of us for a change.

Two weeks after it went live, I had the game, and was preparing to play with my friends.  I spent no less than 3 hours in the character creator (even as it was back then, with much less in the way of choices), because I had a picture in my head of what I wanted to see in my first hero.  After all that time, it took me another hour to pick a name.  When it was done, and that character stepped foot in Atlas Park, and heard that theme, my heart soared as if in some way, a real hero was born.  It quickly became the ONLY game I wanted to play, and when it was gone, everything that came after paled in comparison.  I would always think "This is fun, but I wish it was CoH".

No game ever came close before, or after, and when it rose from the ashes last year, I recognized it for the rare second chance that it was.  My appreciation for the game has not wavered for 16 years, and the last year of actually playing again has been amongst the most memorable, and cherished in recent memory.

May Paragon City go on forever!

 

GM Crumpet:

My favourite memory? Logging into the game for the first time and completing the tutorial, to be transported to Miss Liberty in Atlas. The first time I heard the fanfare and saw the details and all the people running round and chatting was something I'd never experienced before. It's closely followed by the first time I logged into Homecoming and had the same thing happen again. I was almost in tears to realise I had come home again.

 

[Chuckers]

Thank you SO much! I am honored to be with such wonderful memories. 

Akeela, your memory made me cry. 

[mereman]

Congratulations to the winners.

[shockfactor50]

On 7/6/2020 at 4:15 PM, Chuckers said:

Thank you SO much! I am honored to be with such wonderful memories. 

Akeela, your memory made me cry. 

I'm with ya there.  Hit me hard in the feels.

[RadicalRay]

On 7/6/2020 at 1:23 AM, GM Miss said:

Submission by Akeela on Discord:
“I beta tested CoV, played CoH while awaiting launch. At the time, it was me, my (then GF) of 6 years, and our 1 in 18 million, by way of profound disabilities son... Josh. While it was the opinion of most medical personages that Josh would never walk, talk, see, nor hear...we did not believe. Josh was always at my side...still is...but would watch me play CoX intently; after a few months, one day, he reached for the KB...so we let him try. Within a week, he learned WADS, arrows and Space...enough to play...and thus began the FIRST ever demonstration of his sight, and propensity to learn. This game...gave my son a life and I will NEVER forget it.”
 

Thank you for sharing this story, It was incredible to read. 

[Giocondi]

Loved Chuckers memory for sure when I first read it! Side note: I just posted on the forums and have never used COH discord and have no idea what I would do to claim any prize there.

 

I'm glad my memory was enjoyed by others and it was nice just reminiscing about it!

[GM Miss]

Contacted you 😄