Why City of heroes is the best mmo of all time.

[Fastchicken1st]

When city of heroes released i was not born yet but i was still around when the game got shot down. I knew nothing about coh i did not know it even got shut down. I found out about the game 2020 i was mind blown and confused why it shut down. When i first started this game i wanted to make a villain soon i would switch this to hero. I did not know healer role was  hard to solo but i learned my lesson soon after. I'm lvl 38 healer and this game is not hard for me like it used to be. When u got a strong community  that gives smart advice the game becomes easier. I use pain domantion with enegry blast as a coruppter i had to buy enhancements upgrades and level up with others to make my self stronger. Wasnt a slow grind until i statrting joinning groups running raido's. I am still new to this game and i have much to learn close to lvl 50 and when i get there i'll share my full experince.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Fastchicken1st

[arcane]

Right on homiesapien

[Darmian]

It's a fun place to be, whether you are a returner from before or new.

[Force Redux]

Welcome to the game! Agree, even now, this is the best MMO I've played since 1999.

[Shenanigunner]

13 hours ago, Darmian said:

It's a fun place to be...

 

And that says it all. So many MMO's seem to be a grind, gank-fests, tedious or only playable in one way.

 

CoH got it all right, long, long ago. And not enough other game makers have learned its lessons. (Starting with NCsoft!)

[Erratic1]

To be fair, I've encountered plenty of people who feel CoH is a grind from 32-35 ownwards. 

 

Compared to what I've experienced in other games I think that is silly but its a subjective thing I suppose.

[Dazl]

Congratulations on discovering the game. Seems like most people playing are returning vets, so it’s cool to see a true noob.
 

One of the things that make CoH special is the breaking of classic MMO trinity of tank, dps, and healer. With so many different AT’s and power sets, there is a lot more team flexibility. There really isn’t such a thing as a “healer”, and at the higher levels healing isn’t even that important. Play what you want, and enjoy the ride.

Edited July 30, 2021 by Dazl

[Marshal_General]

Wait! You were not born when City of Heroes came out?

 

Where's my Geritol?

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, Marshal_General said:

Wait! You were not born when City of Heroes came out?

Where's my Geritol?

You young whippersnappers, get off my lawn!      🙂

[Fastchicken1st]

2 hours ago, Dazl said:

22 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

23 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

You young whippersnappers, get off my lawn!      🙂

 

Thanks had to search what that even ment

 

[Crazyleo]

Want to know why this is the best MMO ever:

 

THE COMMUNITY (ie....you)

 

It's true. Countless times I've seen players help each other out and in the past when most people would have moved on; this community held strong and stayed together by other means. Take for example Cape Radio. That station has stayed on the air ever since day 1 and still continues to broadcast to this day.

 

So; take a look at yourself in the mirror; and what you see is what makes this game the greatest MMO ever.

 

[JnEricsonx]

My first MMO, started right before I5 had hit and after the great Regen Nerf, nothing really annoyed me.  Well, the original Energy Transfer animation change was a bit annoying, I'll admit that.  When a friend told me I didn't have to worry about loot, after suffering horrendous RNG in Diablo 2 for a few years...yeah, I gave that up(glares at the upcoming Remastered version)

[srmalloy]

10 hours ago, JnEricsonx said:

When a friend told me I didn't have to worry about loot, after suffering horrendous RNG in Diablo 2 for a few years...yeah, I gave that up

Or the eternally-abused need/greed mechanic -- "Yeah, one of my guild mates' friend's brother is missing that piece from his set, so I'm needing on it."

[Black Talon]

Just to note that I agree with the OP's opinion, and back up everything people have stated here the big one-ten.  Crazyleo is your basic 1000% correct: it's the community from beginning, through the middle, till the end.  Today, running with a new alt in the Hollows, a fellow player did a fortune reading, then handed over a mid-size rage insp in a spirit of total gratuity.  I can't think of any other game I've ever played - and that hasn't been very many, just to be clear - where that sort of thing would even have been thought of, let alone carried through with.  I keep suspecting that it's the genre and nature of the game itself that encourages this kind of interaction - your WoW-type game, at least as far as I've read and been told, is pretty much about what Captain Jack Sparrow uses as his motto: "Take what you can; give nothing back."  Really unfortunate that encouraging people to use gaming formats to fulfill this Malthusian doctrine seems to be the choice line of approach for the MMPOG world.  This game (CoH side, anyway) is about helping a world, and it's eternally wonderful to see that ideology carried through on a daily basis with other human beings.  They, and we, are going to do nice things because they make us feel good.

 

Also, this seemed a good place to note: Made the donation today, in my small (very small, relatively) part to keep the engines churning here.  Eternal congratulations and thanks to the Homecoming crew, and hoping that CoH Homecoming has a very long and illustrious lifespan ahead of it.

[Turric]

This is my favorite MMO of all time.

 

But I would submit that Eve Online is the best MMO of all time. It's simply so big and so much to do. But it isn't my favorite.

 

I would follow that up with Star Wars - the Old Republic.  Those two games are really strong but the asshattery of the common player detracts from the experience. 

 

Age of Conan was good, but the lackluster player base was, well, lackluster. The game could have been much better. Big missed opportunity.

 

I would place Dark Age of Camelot as second place of all time (in my opinion). There were about 2 years back in 2003/4 ish that were fantastic for that game. PVP (or RVR as it was known in that game) was really its strong point and raison d'etre, DAOC had a good community.

 

I am told the character creation in Black Desert Online is the best of all time. I have not heard anything special about the gameplay. But I have never played it so...

 

COH community stood out heads and shoulders and made it more enjoyable. Alongside the character creator. That was top notch.

[Nemeroff]

On 7/30/2021 at 11:28 AM, Shenanigunner said:

And that says it all. So many MMO's seem to be a grind, gank-fests, tedious or only playable in one way.

And I find some IRL that obsess over those games. They tried CoX before shut down, didn't like it, and "couldn't quit fast enough."

I tell them it's back new & improved! 😁 But they're aloof, and I'm labeled as a knuckle dragging village idiot. And I don't care, I got my game back!

[Shenanigunner]

24 minutes ago, Nemeroff said:

 

😁    I don't care, I got my game back!

 

T-shirt. Who's in?

[Pixie_Knight]

I joined CoH during the 1 year anniversary event in 2005. It was my first MMO, I fell in love, then (if I'm honest with myself) got seriously addicted. Even after a year and a half of doing nothing but eating, sleeping, going to work, or playing CoH and thus burning out it was still my favorite leisure activity. It had managed to replace reading or vegging out watching tv. For nearly a decade I had a subscription to the game. Towards the end I didn't subscribe every month, but that's only because the game had moved to a F2P model, so I was able to play without paying when finances were tight.

 

Going to other MMOs, they felt over balanced towards requiring a team to do anything. You want to fight even a single enemy and you're alone? It had better be lower level then you. Certain classes could maybe fight a single enemy that is their level, but it'd be a close fight. 2 enemies is a death sentence. You don't feel like a hero in most MMOs. Instead you feel like Random Grunt #982.951.734. You not special, you are not a hero, you are in fact quite replaceable and expendable. And the in-game communities reflect that, becoming rather toxic as a result. In City of Heroes however, sure you're just one among many but you feel like a hero. You feel like you can take on anything. And if a threat is too big for any one hero, there are fellow heroes that have your back. It has always done a good job of selling the Superhero concept.

 

And the game community? It reflected that too. Even when there was a flame war (which I participated in more then my fair share of), they tended to be rather polite. You could be engaged in a heated argument with someone in one thread, and chatting with that same person in another thread on another topic. Arguments didn't usually spread across the forum. If you asked for help, you got help rather then insults (usually).

 

THAT is what has always made CoX the best MMO in my opinion.

[DrInfernus]

A week or so ago I had just completed T4ing my Ice/Cold corruptor. That’s usually the point where I’ll start a new character and begin the cycle all over again. Sat there looking at the AT select screen for ages and couldn’t started thinking: ‘you know what? There’s nothing I really fancy playing here. I think I’ve made the lot.’ I felt sad. 

 

About half an hour later I’m slashing my way through Nova Preatoria with a Katana/Ninja Sith Lord character and thoroughly loving my life. 
 

And that’s why COH is the best. 

[Pixie_Knight]

Ask a hundred people what makes CoH the best MMO, and you're likely to get 100 (or more) answers. There's just so much to love. And there's never been another MMO quite like it. You want a fantasy MMO? Those are a dime a dozen, and they all feel like cookie cutouts. Some might have interesting and unique mechanics such as a card game based diplomacy system, but they mostly are identical. Play one, and you've pretty much played them all. So just find the particular flavor you prefer. But CoH? It was unique, and it's still unique. Others have tried to cash in on the superhero subgenre, and some have even done well. But nothing has ever had the sheer staying power of CoH. Hell, 7 years after the game was shut down, and people still fondly look back upon it. And many of us are playing once again via Homecoming servers (and other servers I suppose).

[TombTyrant]

On 7/29/2021 at 7:30 PM, Fastchicken1st said:

When city of heroes released i was not born yet 

 

Cries in old.

[Shenanigunner]

24 minutes ago, TombTyrant said:

Cries in old.

 

Nah, it's all good. My kids were about 5 and went from Reader Rabbit to CoH. By 7 of so they were able teammates. Running a few missions with my son once a week or so - he's 21 - keeps us in touch across a few thousand miles. Aging is good sometimes.

[Pixie_Knight]

51 minutes ago, TombTyrant said:

 

Cries in old.

 

That is a mighty neat trick. How did you pull it off?

[TombTyrant]

6 minutes ago, Pixie_Knight said:

 

That is a mighty neat trick. How did you pull it off?

 

I got old. Then I cried about it.

[Black Talon]

Taking a few minutes and veering off the OP topic (more than) a bit, but I just have to state this: Pixie_Knight, I was nodding, eyes wide, from beginning to end while reading your post from yesterday.  Your situation and mine - and I suspect thousands of undeclared others - are mirrors of each other in so many respects: CoH as our first (and really only) MMPOG, and realizing and having to come to terms with the fact that the experience had, in fact, become an outright addiction.  No, I never missed work - paid or volunteer - because of it, but numerous social and personal commitments (including trying to keep myself in decent physical condition, which I set great store by) ended up suffering greatly.  The situation came to an end with the third weekend of February, '08, when I had spent the entire weekend, from Friday afternoon till Sunday midnight, doing nothing but playing the damn game.  Nothing else; no stopping except to eat.  No fulfilling of commitments to get out to the gym - which I promised myself continually throughout the weekend - and no contact with other humans.  I shut the game down on Sunday night and thought, Congratulations.  You have to be at work in a few hours and you just f***ed away an entire weekend and have nothing to show for it.  Way to be, champ.

 

It wasn't the first time I'd had this thought, but there seemed to be something a little more...earnest, intense and perhaps desperate in it this time.  I, gratefully, managed to lay off the game that week and got back to doing other stuff; real stuff, from Monday to Friday.  The game became a weekend-only situation, Friday evenings to Sunday afternoon, with a few hours on each day.  Getting back into condition showed exactly what sort of cost the CoH situation had taken, and I made a God-honest promise to never let this happen again.

 

Part of the reason this was possible is identical to what you noted about the other online games, particularly fantasy genre ones: they're all essentially interchangeable.  I tried D&D Stormreach for one month and then quit out of sheer boredom.  Jack Emmert and his crew's skill, insight and sheer depth and love of the superhero genre - and yes, they were working within the technical/software coding limits of the time, but what they pulled off was flat-out amazing - was reflected, I think, in how much the community came together around this game, its Developers and each other.  The same applies now to the Homecoming crew and their having taken unknown time, energy, resources with no guarantee of reward, and having applied the Delco batteries and jumper cables, getting the sparks jumping and crying out, "It's alive!  It's alive!"  Are there things that could be perhaps added on/altered as a consequence of the last eight years?  Yeah, but nothing of real note that would change what we already have here.

 

Gone on way too fricking long, and apologies for that, but just wanted to state very clearly, Pixie_Knight, my deepest thanks for what your statement had inspired and recalled from years and situations past.  Thank you for your forthrightness and honesty in making a public statement like that, and further thanks for making me - and others, very likely - think about their own situations and how to avoid personal pitfalls and internal weaknesses again.