Part 1: How Do You Define "Playing the Game," Specific to City of Heroes?

[GraspingVileTerror]

I've got a little research project in mind, but I don't want to start off by asking a question which is immediately faulty by being based on an assumed premise and my own biases.

So, to that end, I would like to encourage everyone to take a moment (or longer) to just give their personal definition of what it means to "Play the Game" for them, specific to City of Heroes/Villains/Going Rogue.

If your point of view has evolved from when you first started playing to now, please share your entire perspective, and what factors you believe contributed to that change.  I also look forward to hearing from folks months or years down the line to see if further changes in perspective occur.

 

There is no wrong answer here.

 

If you would like to post on someone else's behalf as an advocate, I certainly take no issue!  I just ask that you specify at which points you are speculating and at which points you are giving what you believe to reasonably be the exact opinion of someone else.

 

And seriously:  Please do -NOT- argue against someone else's personal experience or the definition they come up with.  

By all means offer ideas to enrich and expand on others' thoughts, and build on one another's ideas, even if you own points of view run contrary to others'.  But don't tell anyone they're wrong when all they're doing is sharing a personal point of view.

Similarly, and in the other direction . . . please try to avoid expressing an opinion and then claiming it to be irrefutable fact.  This thread is specifically about collecting opinions.

Future threads in this project will give people opportunities to provide factual data for analyses and deconstruction.  There will be time for critique and debate with the eventual dissertation this project is leading toward.

 

Additionally, if members of the Homecoming Team are willing to give their own points of view here, I think that would be quite excellent!  Feel free to share it from an unassociated forum account, though, if you are concerned that your point of view may be unfairly weighed due to the position of power you have here.

 

With the disclaimers out of the way . . . I'll break the ice by sharing my own point of view!

[GraspingVileTerror]

As some of you know, I can get a little verbose at times.  It's something I've been criticized for, and rather recently someone levelled the criticism in a fair and meaningful way.
Sadly, I can't quite find the words to state my view here simply.  So, in advance, I apologize for the potential lack of accessibility in what I'm expressing here.  If anyone has some ideas on how to express my ideas using language that would be easier to follow, I welcome their input.
 
I play City of Heroes in the capacity of exploring the various forms of interactivity that exist between the game mechanics, the software itself, the social and cultural patterns that manifest as a result of the intersection of game mechanics, narrative elements (setting, themes*, tone*), and the audience's varied perspective, and the examination of all of that through the lenses of a game player, a roleplayer, and a game developer.  I know a lot of people don't want or see depth in this game, but my point of view is that this game is already profound, and there exists the potential to go much, much deeper, and with relative ease (compared to some settings and games where adding further depth would be an exercise in frustration).
The methods by which I play are:  Following the game rules, examining and critically analyzing the game rules, pushing against the game rules, fostering emergent gameplay, developing relations with other players, exploring the narrative with other players (roleplay), and engaging in discourse related to development and metagame structures.
All of that (and potentially more) is my form of play here.

[The_Warpact]

I have literally been playing with my vgmates shortly after CoV going Live.

 

Each one of them has their own personalities when it comes to the game and this to me is the thing that brings me back (along with my altitis).

 

My one friend we min max toons, make builds together, and discuss the numbers.

 

Another friend is just fun to team with because of his personality. Another is my wife and perhaps the best brute I have ever teamed with.

One friend is close to my age and we are close to in regards to our professional lives, my other buddy was in the Navy like me and our sense of humor meshes well, and finally my last friend is my oldest as we first teamed with each other when we both started on the same night.

The rest we have lost in rl, health issues, etc.

 

But, it this team of Supervillains is why I come back and will come back till we are all gone or the game shutters permanently. 

[GraspingVileTerror]

Thank you for sharing that, @The_Warpact!

Although it kind of hits in to what I was going to ask in Part 2:  Why Do You Play?

I suppose that the "Why" is easier to answer than the "What," but I absolutely welcome and appreciate seeing your post as well.

 

But what is it that you do with your VG-Mates when you all play together?   What are the activities you do which you feel define the word "play" in this context?

[KauaiJim]

Anytime I am in game doing anything.

 

Additionally, I loosely consider activities related to CoX to be part of playing the game, while not actually being playing the game.  I.E. :

- Working on builds in Mid's

- Working on my spreadsheets

- Ourodev stuff

- PK's Project Spelunker

- Ordering / standardizing my login screens on both computers

- Perusing / posting on these forums

- Perusing / posting in Discord

- Watching videos related to CoH

- Doing online research for a build concept

- Checking out mods

- Picking up my cape and tights at the dry cleaners (<- joke)

- etc.

 

In game can be anything from SG base building to farming to power levelling to badging to tweaking my look / build to crafting to playing the AH to actual content playing (and I even rerun the Twinshot arc sometimes because I'm weird and enjoy it and it can give me a feel for how the build / toon plays with just beginning / basic abilities), etc..  Plus literally anything else I determine to add to my to-do list like eventually making a redside stable, etc.   

 

Probably not exactly the kind of answer you were looking for.

 

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by KauaiJim

[Darmian]

Interesting topic. I've ranted a few times here and there about how I see things but here's a brief précis on how I got to this point, and perhaps this might surprise others who have chatted/interacted with me on my previous rants.

 

I love the genre and the lore of this game and depth is exactly what I want to see and in fact try to provide when I write AEs. Story story story, that's what is important to me here.  I care nothing for power sets other than that they work as promised and for me, while I appreciate the absolute labor of love the devs put in to polish and balance what we have, these are still just "stuff" and not "content".  Emphasis here: I DO appreciate all that hard work because I benefit from it. 

 

I've not even finished the sheer amount of content the game has itself, never mind my eternal curiosity as to how we could advance the story or at the least iron out the sheer madness of the holes left by bad retcons and OG devs apparently developing material separately from each other and for some damn reason not telling each other what they were doing. So my mode of play is dictated by a desire to "fix" holes I find. Sure, I do it by writing AEs that attempt to fill gaps/explain the holes. Now, since I'm not a dev I cannot effect any changes  at all really, but I want to provide options.  Yes, it's egocentric. Yes, I've had comments that tell me that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.  Perhaps I don't.  For a chunk of the player base I'd lay money that my approach is nonsense. Oh well.

 

I play to push the mechanics of story as much as I can.

 

And I try to have as much fun as I can doing it. 

 

(People see me standing in front of the second AE console from the left in Pocket D for hours, and by now most have stopped asking me if they can join my farm!)

 

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by Darmian

[The man who laughs]

Hahahahahaha! 😆

 

Ahem.

 

I try and play my chosen class to the best of my ability. Every play session, my goal is to trigger comments from my teammates. Comments like: "Our <AT unknown> is on it!" "Kudos to <my name>!"

 

As a former min-maxer powergamer, I enjoy theory crafting and playing through my creations to see if my assumptions were right. Now, instead of minmaxing, I enjoy making crazy, improbable creations work; less focus on the numbers.

 

As someone who works in "design" I also enjoy analyzing the designs of the various games I play. City of Heroes is interesting to me in some of the approaches it has taken. It has its serious warts but it also does some things really well. It is an interesting case study for sure.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Edited June 9, 2021 by The man who laughs

[GraspingVileTerror]

@KauaiJim, your answer is absolutely appreciated and certainly taps in to what I'm looking to get from this thread.  Thank you!

This goes for everyone, but remember that you can post in this thread more than once!  If new ideas or ways to express those ideas pop in to your head related to this subject, please keep 'em coming!  The purpose here is to do as much pointed information gathering as possible.  Sometimes we'll colour outside the lines (so to speak), but that gives more context and a stronger framework to analyze the information provided.

 

@Darmian, always good to hear from you!  Your post kind of gives me a good segue to post something I pruned from my first reply, since it kind of went on a tangent that I didn't want to bog this thread down with.  The asterisks from "themes" and "tone" lead to:  https://forums.homecomingservers.com/profile/42940-graspingvileterror/?status=79&type=status

 

@The man who laughs, well now . . . who could you possibly be?

Joking aside, thank you very much for sharing your perspective too!

[The_Warpact]

39 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

 

 

 

But what is it that you do with your VG-Mates when you all play together?   What are the activities you do which you feel define the word "play" in this context?

It depends, we all know each other personally, so we know everything about each other lives, kids, professions, etc. So we talk alot of course. 

 

Our play time together is defined mostly on the "can we do it" mindset. Let's set this at +4×8 and see if we survive, did we plan our builds well enough, let's try this, etc.

I'm the de facto leader so its usually up to me to set the agenda, formulate plans, etc on our time together so play time is trying to survive what I drag us into.

[Darmian]

2 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

 The asterisks from "themes" and "tone" lead to:  https://forums.homecomingservers.com/profile/42940-graspingvileterror/?status=79&type=status

Ah yes.  I think we are on the same page mostly when it comes to this.

 

Addendum to the above - though it probably can be inferred - a major part of how I "play" IS writing AEs. That and chatting to other AE creators about how we push the boundary with the limited tools we have, discussions on lore hooks and so on.

 

I DO have, like @The_Warpact, a small gang of RL known players that I hear from regularly for a once a week meet up, and randomly in the rest of the week, not to mention the Praetorians SG that I'm a member of, though I'll happily rabbit on to prospective Gold side players about the do's and don'ts of Going Rogue as well.

[Zephyr Star]

When the game was first released it was shown to me and I was skeptical. I'd never really been much of a gamer so it didn't hold much interest for me aside from the subject matter as I'm a lifelong comic book fan. After much cajoling, I finally relented and rolled my first character, an Empathy/Dark Defender. The person that had talked me into playing had a MA/Invuln Scrapper and we tripped through the first few levels having a blast even though we didn't know what we were doing. Once we met other players and eventually made a SG together is when the game really opened up for me. Eventually I was introduced to roleplaying and that's what got me completely hooked. I am still in regular contact with a handful of people I played with during Live, which means a lot to me.

Now I play mostly out of nostalgia. Only a few people I played with during Live have returned and most of them only log on occasionally. I'm on Everlasting so I still enjoy roleplaying, just don't have the time or energy for it like I once did.

I just roll alts and enjoy running through old content while trying out new powersets as well as talking too much in General chat. This game is very relaxing compared to other games I turned to after Live shut down and I am so glad it's back.

 

[Pouncy]

Hi. And thanks for asking.

 

I have to post before reading anyone else's post to keep my thoughts true.

For me playing the game is Playing my character. Developing the character in a well rounded aspect.  This has always been my goal in any game.

I love that the game allows us to develop much more of our other sides other than blam blam do this mission next.  I am not often on missions in fact. I am exploring, creating bases, creating costumes, creating macros that make my personality stick out more. And more often helping others do those same things.  When I am on a mission I tend to avoid "speed" runs and learn the missions as well as experience the plot.  And I will often be hanging back if others are straggling behind to make sure they are not lost or anxious.

 

I love helping people understand how to make a base and have taught many.  While I have created several bases for them I prefer to teach them how to make their own and experience the joy they have developing what their mind sees.

 

I often keep help channel open to help others.  I deeply enjoy this aspect of the game as well.

 

I might add more to this later but that is a quick jist.

[GraspingVileTerror]

Thank you to both @Zephyr Star and to @Pouncy (and a special thanks for being there to help others!  Just want to express my personal appreciation for that)!

 

I received a point-of-view from someone in-game that I would like to share for the sake of completeness and more accurate representation of the variety of perspectives that players have.  I will not post the person's Chat Handle, though, for respect of their privacy.

"personally, I never and I mean never read the forums
"I couldn't care less [...] I play games to play, not read about perspectives.
"I think this game is broken honestly but again, shrugs... fine enough.  I mostly play solo though I have close personal friends who also play"

 

"I honestly don't feel there is a social aspect of this game anymore
"the meta essentially made the various character types non-essential for most of it's gameplay"

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by GraspingVileTerror
They had a little more to add.

[CriusofCoH]

For me, "playing the game" is a variable mix of costume/character design, trying various AT/power mixes to find ones I like, immersion in the game world, enjoying random interaction with other players, teaming with my friend. Basically, all aspects of the game. I just love the game, never really get tired of it. I was invited into closed beta, but couldn't get a PC and internet connection that could run it until beta went open, but I was in from then on, and I've never really stopped enjoying the game.

 

Kinda feels like it was fate, too: this is the only game I ever got an invite into beta for, and it was out of the blue; I live just a few miles from the latitude & longitude the devs gave for Paragon City in the old beta forums; supers is my favorite genre, and my friend and I had been disappointed with the vaporware supers games that had been promised just prior to CoH, like Guardians: Agents of Justice, and had found the single player Freedom Force to be pretty good but wanted to be able to do multiplayer... and then City of Heroes showed up.

 

Playing City of Heroes means spending time with something that pretty much ticks all of my boxes. I've had great experiences during The Gap, playing games like Skyrim, the Dishonored series, Minecraft, and others, all of which literally provided me with thousands of hours of excellent game time, but CoH, while certainly flawed and showing it's age, still retains the #1 spot.

[Naraka]

Playing the game, for me, is partly an exploratory experiment and partly a mental exercise in interaction with the story elements.

 

On the exploratory part, that comes with looking at power combinations, slotting and expertise that I've not played with and working that character into a limited lore of my own character comic universe.  To dissect that a bit, I usually look to powersets I haven't played or have interest in (if I've played a set before, try combining it with something I haven't played) on top of utilizing pools/epics that I have not used much or exclude pools that I use more often.  Then, creating a workable build using that template forced some out-of-the-box build crafting that tends to not be meta but very functional in typical play ranging from +2 to +4 and x2 to x4 with certain exceptions.  So I might end up with a stalker that uses most of the Presence pool or a Tanker that has the whole magic origin pool or even a character who has 4 different PBAoE cone breath attacks that are his primary source of damage or a tanking defender with near capped def/res and lots of CC.

 

The story element side is done mostly solo (teaming is partly to break up the monotony, get extra rewards, etc).  Reading the various portions of a story, I then form a lot of my own narrative about how my characters react and interact with what's going on dependent on the character's personality and how it could fit with the characters' backstory or the lore elements that bind them with my other characters.  When a character has flaws and blindspots, it makes them much easier to fit within the confines of the world but also makes them more interesting as the stakes of the story get bigger (usually talking redside).

 

tl;dr version: much of the "playing the game" part is done outside of the game or within my own personal view of my characters.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this with their "silent protag" characters in other games/MMOs.  It makes creating multiple characters still somewhat engaging when doing the mostly solo story and exposing yourself to the various aspects of the game you were told was underpowered.

[TraumaTrain]

3 hours ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

I would like to encourage everyone to take a moment (or longer) to just give their personal definition of what it means to "Play the Game" for them, specific to City of Heroes/Villains/Going Rogue.

 

It means fun. After a long day at work, I often just want to come home and log on some character for a couple hours.

 

I means having some creativity (character creation). I'm a table top gamer, and I GM different RPGs including supers. CoH lets me create villains and heroes that often end up in my game as NPCs.

 

It is a bit of social time with long-time friends. On weekends, I run around with friends I made way back on live. I also often play with the former Mrs. Train, who I continue to have a solid friendship with and great respect for.

 

It is social time with new friends. I started a themed TF/SF team well over a year ago, and quite unexpectedly, the same several players show up to it each week. A couple of them I chat with through Discord or Facebook now, even outside of the game.

 

 

I could say a lot more and go into a whole mess of detail, but I suspect you'll be asking other questions in Parts 2, 3, 4, and so forth in which that exposition will be more valuable to you.

[America's Angel]

PvP

RPing

Ski Slope

AFK Farming whilst working from home

 

I don't really run regular PvE content all that much these days. (Tbh, even back on live I still behaved this way. I prefer treating CoH as a sandbox rather than a theme park.)

 

Still having a blast, though.

 

 

[Dark Dove]

DEFINING playing the game for me is pretty anything-friendly. I choose to look at playing the game the same way I look at playing a tabletop RPG.

 

All activities great and small are part of the experience.  Creating the character is playing the game, picking the abilities is playing the game, interacting with other players playing the game is playing the game.  Advancement of any kind doesn't need to happen to be playing the game, only interaction, although advancement is also playing the game. Talking about the game and ways to play it more, better, different is also playing the game.  Roleplaying is also playing the game, even if you only do it in your head by yourself while you play the game in other ways, or when you write a story about the character you play.

 

MMO's have a special "hobbyist" feeling to them at some levels compared to other video gaming outlets, because of the time and care that can be invested in many aspects that aren't always a part of other games, from building a character, building a base, building a mission, building a team, building a story, building a community, building a legacy. There is a persistence in community, and MMO's that thrive on community tend to foster that hobbyist feeling. I think interacting with the hobby is playing the game.

 

HOW I play the game is a different thing.  I may not do all of the things I define as playing the game.

 

I'll level characters to 50, make costumes for them until they are just right, make a nice backstory for them, put the RP tag in the bio, plan out an intricate and careful build to maximize their potential (I like to make the most out of even the least popular powersets), get the four passive accolades solo and the badges necessary for content (midnighter etc) and then play the content I enjoy exclusively with teams, never or rarely solo. I hunt on the forums for posts about powersets that interest me, and chime in about powersets that I have experience with when people ask for help regarding them.

 

I don't engage in RP very often, or if I do it is at a trivial level. I don't build bases or communities, I only run teams in the wee hours of the morning when nobody else is running them, I'm not deeply invested in any of the competition based aspects of the game or the organization of raid-sized content, I keep my interactions on the forum or in game only as I don't follow twitch or discord stuff.  I don't solo lots of story arcs or try to read all of the lore for the game.  All of that which I don't do is playing the game, and some of it I'd like to do and some of it I wouldn't like to do, but it's still playing the game, it just isn't how I play.

[UltraAlt]

6 hours ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

So, to that end, I would like to encourage everyone to take a moment (or longer) to just give their personal definition of what it means to "Play the Game" for them, specific to City of Heroes/Villains/Going Rogue.

 

This is pretty wide and unfocused. So my answer will be in that mode as well.

 

I have been into comic books since I was probably 8 or 9. I wasn't able really to try collect any series until I was a tween.

My ability to expand my collecting occurred over time and expanded.

 

In parallel to my enjoyment of comics, I was a gamer. I played board games, chess, etc. This expanded into Avalon Hill tactical board games.

Then something happened, a kid that sat in front of me in Geometry class had a copy of the white box set of D&D. The original D&D. Not the Basic D&D starter set with the blue book and the first three levels  - the white box with like the first 3 or 4 digest sided books.

After that I was at gaming stores looking for more D&D stuff, ran into the original Starfleet Battles, Battle Droids (the original MechWarrior), etc.

 

".... hey, hold up! This doesn't have anything to do with City of Heroes ...."

 

I'm getting there.

I ran into Traveller. The Sci-Fi game of the not-so-far future.

Almost immediately, well, immediately when GM'ing the game, I was running a world "5 years from now in the Marvel Comics Universe".

After the first successful tour with a military unit (you could pretty easily die during character creation using the original Traveller rules), you could try to join SHIELD. You could this each tour as you progressed through character creation and could continue as a member of SHIELD until your character mustered out of service into actual game play.

I wanted to be running a game in the superhero universe with players interacting with and becoming superheroes in their own right.

First group of players were very Mercenary minded and pretty much became villains from the get go.

Fast-forward to the next gaming group of Traveller players.

Same scenario, but players could try to gain superpowers by gaining a mutation. Mutations were entirely random. A mutation event would occur. Players would say a power they wanted. I would roll 3 dice. If they came up all 6's that was the power their character had. No double picking, new power each dice roll. Was somewhat time consuming but had interesting results and this time people actually played heroes.

 

"... but this isn't about City of Heroes..."

 

I know, I'm still getting there.

The original Champions RPG finally came out. Sure. Other superhero RPGs came out, but Champions point based character system was incredibly complicated and extremely balanced.

That was... sorry... "a game changer".

I no longer had to modify a game to create super-heroes. I had a game that was designed for superheroes.

I played and ran multiple Champions games interspersed with other RPGs for the next decade+

 

"... but you aren't even talking about computer games ..."

 

Yeah, computers were progressing over that time as well.

The first "computer" game I played was a game about landing a lunar lander on a HP calculator. There weren't home computers that far back in time.

So I was there for the TRS-80, the VIC Commodore, Atari 800, etc.

Time passes.

 

The guys that I had been gaming with for years were all thinking about ways to bring Champions as it truly should be done to computers in a 3-D game. Can you imagine. Back then wanting a real 3D world you could run around in versus the kind of environments that were around back then? Unheard of.

Less time passes.

 

I see an advertisement for City of Heroes. I don't have a computer that can run the game, but I buy it anyway.

While I'm saving up to buy parts to build a computer, I'm going through the book on the game figuring out what characters I'm going to make.

"Oh, that power, yeah, I know which character I made can do that... and this one.. yeah, and that one too... that would be cool. I have to think of something to match those power sets.

 

[to be continued next issue]

[UltraAlt]

Just now, UltraAlt said:

I see an advertisement for City of Heroes. I don't have a computer that can run the game, but I buy it anyway.

While I'm saving up to buy parts to build a computer, I'm going through the book on the game figuring out what characters I'm going to make.

"Oh, that power, yeah, I know which character I made can do that... and this one.. yeah, and that one too... that would be cool. I have to think of something to match those power sets.

 

[to be continued next issue]

 

So maybe this is where the answer actually begins.

 

I buy parts and a friend of mine helps me assemble the computer so I can play CoH.

I think I was in maybe a week before the drop of Episode 2.

Finally, triumphantly, I was able to create my first character in a 3D superhero world! Finally.

And the first character I made was character that I had played in a Champions campaign that was a group of supervillains.

It was so great. The world looked great. I was excited. Ran out in the streets. Fought Hellions.

Was scared to death to /quit out o the game. I thought for sure it meant I would be deleting the character and would have to start over.

Luckily, /help to the rescue. More than one person reassured me that I would be okay to /quit out of the game and that my character would be safely where I left it when I /quit out of the game.

 

So I immediately logged back on and started making another character.

I made 10 (or whatever the max was back then) on the same server the same day.

Wasn't long until I found out I wasn't just limited to the one server, I could make that many on all the servers.

I could explore the game in all kinds of different ways. I could have all kinds of powers whenever I felt like playing those powers.

It was awesome.

 

But then some archetypes were no equal. I liked playing all the archetypes (tanks less than the other 4). It became clear - he/she who does the damage gets the XP and influence. Defenders and to a large extent Controllers were pretty much screwed. I had a defender that was like level 12-15 that couldn't get enough insp to even by enough training insps to slot up fully - which meant that they could do even less damage than the slotted damage dealers on the team, so getting even less influence.

I had to step away from playing those archetypes and fall back to blasters and scrappers which could actually progress in content.

But, I was still playing 3D superheroes running around fighting crime and teaming up with a random group of heroes.

Good times.

 

I did what I could to help out in the /help channel whenever I could as it had pretty much saved me from a heart attack by using /quit and not knowing what it would do.

 

The market came out.

This was a .... yeah again ... "a game changer" for me. My Defenders and Controllers could buy pass the mission influence grind by creating things and selling them to the damage dealers that were making more influence.

The market became a huge part of my CoH gaming. It still is.

 

It was great playing characters and leveling up.

Getting that "ding".

Getting new powers.

Defeating foes that could defeat my characters so easily before.

 

I was, and still am, playing for that experience of being able to run around leveling up, learning to use new powers, and helping the citizens of Paragon City - both PC and NPC. Fighting crime on the streets and in missions - helping people on the /help channel.

 

[to be continued next issue]

[UltraAlt]

Just now, UltraAlt said:

[to be continued next issue]

 

Then something revolutionary happened.

We were going to be able to create our own missions. We would be able to add to the insanely awesome gaming experience that was City of Heroes.

 

But there were things creeping around in the background. Gameplay styles and game activity that I didn't agree with.

I avoided them as best I could.

 

Teaming was set up so that mentoring/sidekicking could be use to power-level characters. I alway had felt that this was not in the true nature of the game and that it bypassed the experience of being a hero gaining experience and knowledge of the City. It wasn't so hard to avoid being a part of this. Sometimes it was more or less inescapable if one wanted to run on a big team or on a task force.

In the background, higher level character were already farming missions by not completing them and resetting them to run them over and over.

I felt bad about this, so I avoided it.

I loved the game.

 

Goldfarmers were becoming rampant. You couldn't log into the game without a bunch of new goldfarmers spamming their illicit wares. New because the accounts breaking the EULA would be deleted and the ignore list is only so long.

Annoying to log into a game I loved to play and have to deal with that from the get-go each log in.

But I loved the game.

 

DEVs promised that the AE would only be used for mission creation that behaved like missions in the game itself.

Some players wanted it to work otherwise. They were designing power leveling missions on the test server and the DEVs knew it. They made it clear that a 40-ton ban-hammer would be used on anyone making powerleveling/farming missions using AE.

AE was released. The 40-ton ban-hammer dropped. The AE Farmers threatened to quit playing if they couldn't farm/powerlevel in the AE. Who knows what other kinds of threats were sent to the DEV team at the time.

The Dev's caved. AE Farming/powerleveling was now let loose in the CIty.

I hated it. It made the game feel tainted to me.

But I loved the game.

 

Around this time, the 14-day trials were everywhere.

Before too long, City of Heroes went F2P.

 

[to be continued]

 

 

[UltraAlt]

Just now, UltraAlt said:

[to be continued]

 

 

On the more populated servers, the chats were full of people wanting to doorsit to level to 50 and AE babies (new players that had been power leveled to 50) that didn't know how to get out of Atlas park .. and, of course, this was like a harvest coming in for ...you may have guessed it ... the goldfarmers - who were now more numerous and spamming even more than before.

I wasn't liking the game too much

But I had really loved the game.

 

Sure City of Villains came out in there somewhere. I played in the beta. I played some of the content, but really didn't like it.

I guess I like playing heroes.

The only real difference it made was being able to make bases, and that was fun.

 

City of Heroes next big move was to go "Rogue".

My computer was made to play the original game. The DEVs wanted to create a new game with improved graphics that wouldn't play on my computer.

I wasn't in the position to save up for a new computer at the time.

I had really enjoyed playing City of Heroes.

 

The DEVs put in setting to dummy down the graphics in Praetoria for old computers.

I bought "Going Rogue" because I was supporting the game.

I played the beta. I hated it.

I bought City of Heroes to play superheroes in Cityscapes of American comicbooks and not some dystopian but super clean version of a 2000 AD future (don't get me wrong. I subscribed to 2000 AD for years) 

I was not liking my gaming experience as much.

 

Incarnate system. Microtransactions. Goldfarmer influence inflation in the market.

Arrogant new players that had a 50 that demanded that they knew more about the game than I did because I was level 25 and they had dinged the first character they made to 50 in the AE the previous Friday.

Done.

My gaming experience in City of Heroes ruined.

 

I made a costume of a Praetorian clockwork and loaded into all my characters in all 150+ character slots.

I changed the bio on all my characters to "Move along citizen, nothing to see here".

moved them one at a time, to atlas park next to Ms. Liberty and used [Power:Prestige Utility.Self Destruction] to blow them up before logging each of them out for the last time.

I hated what City of Heroes had become.

 

I cancelled my subscription almost exactly a year before the sunset and never logged into my account again.

 

A friend of mine invited me over to his house on the day the servers were shut down. He had continued to play.

That was the end for City of Heroes ... or so we thought ...

 

I didn't feel bad about it being shut down.

I felt a bit bad for the people that loved it that had lost it.

I mourned for what it had been when I enjoyed playing it.

 

[to be continued]

[Wobegone]

Playing the game is:

Logging my main and doing a bit of market work, mainly buying yellow recipes, crafting, and rare roulette, although I do this less and less nowadays.

Getting on my farmer and jamming some music, although I do this less and less nowadays.

Creating a new character and doing some solo missions for a while.

Leveling one of my many solo projects.

Playing missions and Task Forces with whichever alt tickles my fancy.  

 

[UltraAlt]

Just now, UltraAlt said:

[to be continued]

 

"People have been playing City of heroes since it was shutdown."

"What?"

"Yeah, there have been some private servers running. Someone leaked that it has been going on on the internet."

 

Time passes.

 

"I'm playing on Homecoming."

"Oh," I'm saying not too enthused.

"Yeah, it's all free-2-play".

"Oh," I'm saying still not too enthused.

"They got rid of all the microtransactions. You should really check it out."

"yeah sure."

"You can make a thousand characters per server"

"What?"

 

I haven't looked back and felt bad about installing Homecoming.

I'm glad to be back in the City again.

It's good play a hero.

I like exploring the different power sets and he world.

I like helping other players by running teams and teaming with them and by trying to help on the /help channel.

 

The Core City of Heroes community was always great.

I see a lot of those Core CoH community members here.

 

I feel good about my gaming experience.

 

No goldfarmers to ignore whenever I log in.

AE farmers were still ruffling my feathers for a good bit, but I can just overlook the chat without being upset about it.

I still really hate the incarnate system, but that is avoidable.

 

I have friends that I game with on a regular basis and we take turns picking content.

I run task forces and it is cool to see new players enjoying the experience.

 

The Market has changed, but it's still a mini-game in the City.

 

I have way more character slots than I'm likely to ever know what to do with.

 

Good times.

Good times with friends.

Good times with people I don't know.

 

There is bad behavior mixed in, but that's life.

I love City of Heroes, and I hope Homecoming can keep it this way.

[@T3h Ish]

Typically speaking, the main appeal of City of Heroes has always been how accessible it is to the general player, its character customization having nothing to do with your gearing system, having to farm for pieces to do so.

You don't need the IO system to have fun teaming outside of maybe Incarnate Trials, but that's optimal performance vs. just what you can do with the SO system. With the plethora of team buffs, etc, you can still do end-game content readily and easily.

It breaks the trinity system of other traditional MMOs, and that's also a main driver of why it keeps me here. You don't -need- a tank, healer and then some DPS. It's nice to have but, not necessary to team.

The social aspect is paramount in any MMO, so, even if you just use it as a 3d chat engine, sweet. It keeps us connected. If you use it for roleplaying? Hell, even a 3d engine for TTRPGs (Tabletop RPGs) using the roll system in game. Though I definitely wish more dice options where available, d4, d6, d10, d20, d100, etc. Since the combat system is based off a D100 system. 

Even better. There's no rush to get to end-game content, some head that way, and that's not a problem, you aren't chastised for not gearing up as soon as possible.

Base building? Another aspect of the game, it unlocks yet another layer of depth, and player creativity knows no bounds.

I've generally had fantastic experiences, people are far more helpful and understanding than my time in WoW or other traditional MMOs. There's always those few but, that's what /ignore is for.

So, this is what keeps me coming back day after day. For hours at a time, roleplaying, my love of base building. The pick-up and go style of teaming, or even doing Ouroboros content on your own, you can just hop off, and pick it back up later whenever. 

And of course, the biggest thing? The amazing community, I love all of you people. Well, except you. You know who you are. >=3