Love letter to CoH

[arseovrteakettl]

I have mourned the loss of CoX since the NCSoft servers shut down. I have a RL friend who also played, and there has not been a time when we've gotten together, however briefly, that we didn't raise a glass to the memory of CoX.

 

Last week, when I heard of the aptly named Homecoming, I thought it would still be the valiant effort I'd first heard about years ago - a small group of renegade players who somehow back-engineered/hacked/stole CoX assets and recreated the game in a grassroots effort to bring it back to life - or something like that.  It did not seem promising, back then. I also tried Champions Online because I love love Cryptic and Statesman despite their betrayal (sob). But it just didn't do it for me.

 

Then someone in another game I was playing - the lovely Secret World Legends - mentioned Homecoming as if there might be some here, here. I checked it out. And I really could not believe my eyes: not only is there CoX, but there are multiple shards as populated as any WoW server, and likely as populated as any original CoX server ever was.

 

Not only that but there are a bazillion very generous QoL and other new things: totally free play with no restrictions, 1000s of alts possible, ability to instantly rename and move between shards in the login screen, free stuff from the P2W vendors, free base editing (!!!!) with a bazillion new items, many new costume choices, new sprints, new ATs, shortcuts like /ah, ability to play the other side via the little bird in Pocket D, and well every day I learn new stuff.

 

And then I learned it's not even a for-profit effort: it's run by volunteers - people who are doing it just for the love of the game. We're all here just for the love of the game. This has accomplished another miracle: it has effectively banished the miasma of discontent that plagues pretty much every other game. There is no one who is supposed to run things better because you're paying for it and they "work for you". If you don't like it, go make your own.

 

Now if only the shards would come back up...

 

 

Edited June 22, 2021 by arseovrteakettl

[Force Redux]

Welcome home, hero 🙂

[Snarky]

You joined during the only technical hiccup I can recall on Homecoming.  

 

So what I am saying is you brought the bad luck with you!

 

Still, even though you bring us a curse, we welcome you.  That is what villains do.  If you are social there are some very serious, ranging to very casual, SGs to be found.  The message boards for individual servers are a great place to look for that.

 

I played for about half the life of CoX live.  I can say that Homecoming has the best of the CoX experience from there.  

 

It also has some of the hilarity of one of the big servers with crazy stuff happening.  I play on Excelsior and to me, it seems, there is a rather steady influx of newer players who seem amazed you can do simple things like pull the AV from DFB off the bridge to the tunnel and get the badge 3x easier.  To me this indicates they have not seen a lot of the tricks veterans use to get stuff done.  I am a "B" grade player copying off "A" students papers.  Still, it amazes me when no one seems to know these tricks.

 

Have fun and enjoy yourself.  You will find the game is very solid under the current management.  There are the big QoL improvements you have noticed.  there is also a fair amount of tweaking powersets and even ATs to unscrew some of the original DEV teams peculiar building choices.

[Black Talon]

Felt this was the best place to comment without starting up a new thread.  For what it's worth, I did learn of Homecoming considerably earlier than arseovrteakettl - back in April 2019 at first launch - but due to damned technical issues I was unable to get on to anything except the Icon server (where I could at least design/redesign alts) until yesterday.  Now, at last, after NCSoft's completely inexplicable shutdown on November 30, 2012 - and I was there, in Atlas Park, with thousands of others, till the last moment - I get the chance to zoom around Paragon City, the single best MMPOG setting I have ever encountered, and start bringing 'The Boys' back to life.  Again, like arseovrteakettl,  I provide all my thanks to the individuals who took the time, resources, chutzpah and sheer love of Jack Emmert's vision to make this all real again.

 

The next major personal goal to try to find out how to make donations - because, as stated, this may not be a for-profit enterprise, but that doesn't mean people have to lose money - and submit a pause for the cause, and join in with the massive and much-anticipated Pride festivities on June 26...and that's one of the major reasons I wanted to make sure I got on before that date.

 

Again, all thanks to the crew who reassembled this dream, virtual as it may be, and looking forward to meeting up with some new friends and getting reacquainted with old ones.  Great to be here.

 

Now, to find a local ferry that goes to the Rogue Isles so I can give Lord Recluse what for.  Can't be nearly as tough as they say he is...

Edited June 25, 2021 by Black Talon

[Nerio72]

Welcome home, Hero🦸(and/or Villain 🦹)!

[Dazl]

Welcome home Arseovrteakettl and Black Talon. OP sorry it took you so long to find us. Nothing like logging back in for the first time after all those years. There have been many changes since the live days, so make sure you check the patch notes and guide section of the forums. Aaawww, how cool to be a newb again.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Dazl

[Black Talon]

"How cool to be a newb again."  That is too fricking true to be funny, Dazi.  Coming back on here, aside from knowing to how, you know, move and jump and press keys and all that stuff, I had almost no idea how the game ran.  I was going on sheer buried, let's-put-the-Delco-to-this-corpse-and-start-the-sparks-flying instinct on what worked and how, and nearly lost a couple of scraps before I remembered, Oh yeah, use the Inspirations!  Along with making the pause-for-the-cause donations for the administrative team, I'm also thinking about trying to find a decent super-group, just to build up on interactions, rather than turning this into a plain old stand-alone PC game.  Hope to read more from recent arrivals.

[Dazl]

You can find donation information here.

 

 

 

[Black Talon]

All my serious thanks for this, Dazi, and I will be linking up and putting a few bucks in tomorrow.  Just to make a (rather obvious) point, I really feel that it's in situations like this that you start to separate the girls and boys from the women and men; women and men in this case meaning individuals who are actually going to live up to what Mommy and Daddy taught us in terms of civic responsibility.  As far as I'm concerned, that extends to ensuring that this type of arrangement ends up becoming a straight zero-sum game (and I mean that in the most positive sense), where the people responsible can look at the month's activity and say, "We came out with no capital gains, but also owing nothing - and that means we won."  Such an arrangement is - again, for me - yet another exemplar of the modern sharing-economy at work.  The ongoing watch-out problem with such an economy is that it's dependent entirely on the sustained good will of the participants.  I cannot and will not have anything to do with anyone else's commitment in this matter, but I'm sure as hell going to make certain I can say, "I did my part."

 

Anyway, apologies for getting on the soapbox with this, but it's fantastic to see people working together consistently (for a measurable reward, that's true) for the benefit of the community.  Hope to see all on the board soon.

[rizlazz]

I happened across the news when it first broke and (not really) helped with error messages and such trying to connect when it first went up. I'm not ashamed to say that when the load screen cleared in front of Atlas that first time and the music played and there were hero's coming in from all directions, I had an eyeball leak for a hot second.

Welcome home Arseovrteakettl and Black Talon. May your positional defense be strong and your fists be righteous in their anger.

Edited June 26, 2021 by rizlazz
missed a word

[Glacier Peak]

I remember spending the first hour or so logged in just listening to the game music, especially after creating the first character and walking up the steps to Ms. Liberty. Enjoy! Welcome back!

[Dazl]

You do have to be quick when they open the donations window, it fills very fast.

[Black Talon]

Thank you for the alert on that, Dazi; I was hoping to do my Thurston Howell III bit, walking in the room with the white suit jacket, black bow tie, martini in the right hand, cigar in the left and saying, "Lovey, take out my chequebook - no, the one where I can fit in two rows of zeros," but it looks like I might have some competition in that regard.  However, I will still make my attempt and put the hand out for assisting the waking dream.  Just a thought: Maybe have a sort of "numbered waiting list" so those who wanted to pledge but came in a bit too late will essentially be first in line next month.

 

In any event, wonderful to know that Those In Charge essentially have to say, "Sorry, we're full," with regard to community supported items like this, rather than doing the begging-for-cash thing which I've seen happen with a couple of other projects (makes me think; there're more than a few guys panhandling for change in Kings Row.  Might they have been disowned MMPOG administrators once...?).  Every chance I'll see others here in line tomorrow, waiting to do our bit for the Crown.  See everyone tomorrow.

[Black Talon]

Was hoping to avoid this, but very, very ticked off that I was unable to make a donation; the, in my case, predictable technical issues - PayPal not recognizing me, multiple e-mail addresses coming back as unacceptable, calling up PayPal's help number and their own representatives unable to make a connection with the pledge link.  Very, very ticked off that a contribution could not be made, at least in this fashion, this month; however, I am going to try to streamline things so that, come the end of July, I will be able to throw something in (matching what I was going to do today) with a little extra to compensate for lack this month.

 

Meanwhile...all I can do is pass my greatest thanks on to those who did make it through, and ongoing appreciations to the GMs and technical support who make sure the blasted game actually stays on the air.  Will be playing for the next month with much humility, and extending help to all those who need it.

[Sailboat]

Meanwhile, you can make a contribution to  the community just by participating.  Come play with us!

[JnEricsonx]

BTW, it's ok to admit that you cried when you first logged back in.   I hear that Atlas Park music and everything got blurry.   Got even more blurry first time I flew up on top of Atlas's globe.  Then I smacked a Skul into another reality and was happy.

[DoctorDitko]

I had a little something in my eye walking up the steps to Atlas, but I totally lost it when I first heard the Steel Canyon music.

Home at last!

[Black Talon]

DoctorDitko, you're not kidding.  Having watched the various "legacy" and "successor" projects go through their turns over the last near-eight years, I was really left unsurprised that things were moving at incrementally slower and slower paces for pretty much all involved.  The reason, I believe, is not lack of interest or care in what they're doing; it's because everything is on a volunteer basis, and as a consequence people are, as things go on, going to get more and more of their time demanded by work, family, outside previous commitments, unforeseen emergencies, whatall.  People volunteering to pick up for someone who had to leave are going to have to catch up with what was already done, deal with possible (in fact likely) late situations on issues x, y and z, and negotiate with the fact that they're trying to fit in with a crew who had already established a dynamic and might not be happy about the New Arrival possibly making their own suggestions and/or demands.

 

Those who successfully resurrected this game already have the infrastructure in place to get things started up and, as last Saturday proved so aptly, have got support coming out the yin-yang to keep matters going.  I clapped and did the "Yay!" thing when I finally got the launcher activated and My Boy put in front of Officer Flint, ready to do that tutorial.  The original Devs totally outdid themselves with character creation, establishing a totally immersive world and making it something we actually care about.  All congratulations and praise on to the current operators, administrators and moderators, who've done everything to allow me, and others, to continue to go "Yay!" and give the thumbs-up when we decide to scrap Lord Recluse (again).  And do the, "I - I just got something in my eye..." bit when hearing that Atlas Park music for the nth time...because it was something we had every reason and expectation to believe we were never going to hear in-game again.

[JnEricsonx]

Seriously, I hand to god keep wanting to donate, but every time I remember, I see "no, we're good, all full!"