Grandpa, tell me about the old days...

[vibal]

Played i1-i3 and came back for villains (i6) to sunset. Early on the game had a great skeleton, but was in a limbo state in terms of play.

 

i1 still carried the some of the trappings of early MMOs like EQ and DaoC. Hard CC/AoE CC was supported and allowed. A earth controller could turn every spawn into statues. The pull was instanced missions. AO had done the same and it's a great system (when comparing out of date games). Early MMOs you'd likely be in a team sitting in the same 1-3 rooms in a public dungeon cleaning spawns and waiting. Team in the next room? More waiting for you. You'll likely be pulling 1-3 mobs, cc'ing the rest, burning single targets, and repeating. A mistimed pull or CC could lead to a wipe or wasted time/resources. The game was designed with a *much* slower pace than a game would allow for now. Rest used to be on a lifelong timer (60s?). Teams were supposed to be curated and trimmed. Too much control would mean not enough damage. Too much damage would mean not enough mitigation. Those systems died out b/c we want to play.... what we want to play. Fine for the time, but not one I'd clamor to have back.

 

Unlimited tank aggro was a thing. For the folks lamenting ED: every attack had the same recommended slotting - 1 accuracy, 5 damage. Playing a device blaster? 6 damage then. No need for recharge you'll have perma hasten. No need for end reduction. You'll have 6 slotted stamina.

 

Most choices were flat and builds were bland. Balance between sets even inside the same AT were hilarious. Regen sucked. Then you got IH and the game was over. You had a minimum of 5 mandatory picks pre-20: travel power pre-req, travel power, hurdle, health, stamina. Stamina was so good it warranted 2 literal dead picks in your build.

 

Completed builds on live were prohibitively expensive so partial built toons were common & 50's in SO's still existed. This is much more apparent on homecoming as building is relatively cheap. The game rewarded investment with incremental power increases. When a single ragnarok IO is going to set you back 500 million you're less likely to see them crop up. A min level gladiators armor proc set me back 3 billion. Now I drop one in every toon. 

 

IO's brought a lot of numeric increases and rewarded time investment, but they failed to really do what they should've. Optimally set bonuses would've made characters better at the thing they should be doing. Since bonuses are by set regardless of AT they just allow players to fill in gaps instead of accentuating strengths. It's probably an unsolvable problem ATM given the volume of sets * the volume of ATs. Instead of a "build an armor set-bonus" we end up with a system that turns everyone into armor plated bazooka's.

 

 

[Arc-Mage]

Day 1 player here. A buddy of mine who was in beta suggested I buy the game. I did so and rarely got to see him in game due to the hours we kept, they never synced. So I soloed my main toon, Arc-Mage. I played mostly just on weekends. It took me Three Years to solo that toon to 50. The grind was real back then. About the time I hit Talos NC Soft was nice enough to add debt to the the equation. I remember a Dev on the forum’s saying people asked for debt. I didn’t post on the forums back then, but it sure made me wonder what kind of person would ask for debt to be added to the game.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Arc-Mage

[drgantz]

TFs often lasted 5 hours or longer.  This was very annoying.  Sometimes a person would join a TF group, quit shortly after starting and then appear shortly before the end to get the badge.  I hated these scumbags.

 

There were certain mission lines which were needed to a badge.  People often missed this, and later often a lot of infl for someone to invite him on that mission.  I would make a toon, do the mission line and then wait for someone to offer the money.

 

[Snarky]

I remember on live an old original Positron. Then, like now, I mostly solo Red.  But there I was. Not really knowing it and in a PUG. It went long.  Shock.  People started to drop.  We got to the last mission with 5.  2 dropped as it was 'useless' 3 of us went at it for a while.  I tried to finish it solo.  On a Blaster.  I just couldn't kite the EB away from his army.  AAARRRGGHhhhh

[Riot Siren]

Month 1 player here, I remember when I was new my first toon, was Kat/Regen, back when Katana shared Broadswords animation. I deleted it at level 6 because I was getting mad at how long my HP took to regen... I only had fast healing. The first toon I really mained back then was Ill/kin due to finding confused absolutely hilarious (it still is), I actually got kicked from a few teams back then since confuse "made us lose XP". I still remember the wonder of exploring all the high level zones with invis and discovering monster island in PI and was just absolutely mesmerized. But yeah, I can attest to what everyone said about Fire tanks back then, PLing these days has NOTHING on how crazy you could make things back then. Haste was just ALWAYS perma, have a +res shield? Well that res was capped. Takes Stamina? 6 slot that baby and forget end exist. Was really a different game back then. My first 50 was a Kat/invun around issue 4, and I used to get alot of flack and just curiosity for NOT playing regen at the time.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Riot Siren

[drdread]

I was reminiscing last night about how my low-level characters used to get rich before issue 11.

 

I would curate my contacts carefully to get one of three contacts between levels 10 to 14. One of these contacts would give me the "rescue the fortune teller" mission. I would broadcast I had the Atlas Mediallion mission, and invite level 50s to do the mission.

 

After the mission, I would ask for tips. I made millions.

[Arc-Mage]

On 2/23/2023 at 12:12 AM, drgantz said:

TFs often lasted 5 hours or longer.  This was very annoying.

The first time I ran a Sara Moore TF it took two days and it was never finished. 
 

All the other players on the TF smoked. Overly so apparently. So there was a Smoke Break after every mish completion that lasted at least 15 minutes. Keep in mind that at that time every mish was between 40 minutes and an hour to complete. We started mid afternoon and it was coming up on midnight. The team which was totally pick up agreed to log out and come back at 3:00pm the next day to complete the Task Force. Myself  and one other player were the only ones to return. We ran maybe three other mishes by ourselves but couldn’t begin to make any headway on the AV. We both ended up agreeing to quit the TF. 
 

It was so disappointing.

[Glacier Peak]

On 2/23/2023 at 8:54 AM, Snarky said:

I remember on live an old original Positron. Then, like now, I mostly solo Red.  But there I was. Not really knowing it and in a PUG. It went long.  Shock.  People started to drop.  We got to the last mission with 5.  2 dropped as it was 'useless' 3 of us went at it for a while.  I tried to finish it solo.  On a Blaster.  I just couldn't kite the EB away from his army.  AAARRRGGHhhhh

Man the old posi was long long long! I remember not having my travel power and not being the only one, so the many mission doors across the city were an odyssey to say the least.

[Uun]

Shadow Shard TFs before jetpack vendors (2008), mission transporter (2011) and team transport (2012) were added. If you didn't have Fly, you had to use the gravity geysers (and invariably you would miss a jump and have to start again from the zone entry point. It was essential to have a teammate with Fly and Recall Friend.

[ZemX]

8 minutes ago, Uun said:

Shadow Shard TFs before jetpack vendors (2008), mission transporter (2011) and team transport (2012) were added. If you didn't have Fly, you had to use the gravity geysers (and invariably you would miss a jump and have to start again from the zone entry point. It was essential to have a teammate with Fly and Recall Friend.

 

I seem to recall temp jetpacks were always possible to get some way or another, weren't they?  Just wasn't as easy as buying one.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I don't remember exactly when I joined Live -- it was sometime before I6 but not long before since I was neither surprised nor outraged at ED being enacted.

 

But the change that caused me the most joy was when they first instituted ragdoll physics.  Again, no idea when that was.  But watching your opponents crumble and fold up and swing in completely unexpected and literally broken ways brought me a LOT of amusement.  Still does, even though they made it much more "realistic".

[Glacier Peak]

Here's a sort of story / rant about the old times...

 

It was a different time back then. People were paying money for the CoH "service." Time = money back then, so people were paying with both their time and money for their enjoyment. This type of transaction was bound to develop entities who sought to exploit, and there were so many gold farmers in the early days who used to use the 15-day free trial hand outs to farm inf and then sell it for real world currency. It was quickly stomped down, but it was really easy for a player to know if the bad actor was indeed nefarious. 

 

The early days were filled with a lot of unrefined processes, everyone was learning how to make the most of their time and money. Farming and gaming are synonymous in my book, and I've seen it all in this game. From Nemesis Mole Machines to Snake Eggs, Kora Fruit and dumpster zone herding. From under map exploits to finding unlimited Cimeroran enemy spawns behind Romulus' castle on the old Cimerora zone map, to bridging and the Cathedral of Pain, to duplicating IOs in the user enhancement bins. Farming rep in PvP and farming PvP recipes before they were fixed drop rates for defeating other players. 

 

Folks, this game is in a lot better place than it was in the past, but there will always be something that needs fixed or that can be exploited for personal gain. That is something I'll always remember about this game. 

[Luminara]

22 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

It was a different time back then. People were paying money for the CoH "service." Time = money back then, so people were paying with both their time and money for their enjoyment. This type of transaction was bound to develop entities who sought to exploit, and there were so many gold farmers in the early days who used to use the 15-day free trial hand outs to farm inf and then sell it for real world currency. It was quickly stomped down, but it was really easy for a player to know if the bad actor was indeed nefarious. 

 

The early days were filled with a lot of unrefined processes, everyone was learning how to make the most of their time and money. Farming and gaming are synonymous in my book, and I've seen it all in this game. From Nemesis Mole Machines to Snake Eggs, Kora Fruit and dumpster zone herding. From under map exploits to finding unlimited Cimeroran enemy spawns behind Romulus' castle on the old Cimerora zone map, to bridging and the Cathedral of Pain, to duplicating IOs in the user enhancement bins. Farming rep in PvP and farming PvP recipes before they were fixed drop rates for defeating other players.

 

I read that with Nick Nolte's voice in my head, like a voice-over for a noir film.

[Uun]

3 hours ago, ZemX said:

I seem to recall temp jetpacks were always possible to get some way or another, weren't they?  Just wasn't as easy as buying one.

You could get them from the first safeguard/mayhem mission. Jingle jets were available during the holiday event. There's a temp power you can craft. Don't know when any of those were introduced, but fairly certain there was a period of time when there were no temp jetpacks.

[Glacier Peak]

12 hours ago, Luminara said:

I read that with Nick Nolte's voice in my head, like a voice-over for a noir film.

Tropic Thunder actually 😆 

[ZemX]

16 hours ago, Luminara said:

I read that with Nick Nolte's voice in my head, like a voice-over for a noir film.

 

The world had become a candy-colored caricature of itself.  Sure, we told ourselves we were fighting crime.  It looked like anything but.  I knocked back another one and took a long drag on my last cigarette, trying to forget.  That's when it happened.

 

I knew she was trouble the moment I saw her.  Through the smoke of a hundred burning dumpsters.  I saw her.   Walking through this charred wasteland, past the piles of rubble, looking around like she was browsing the latest fashions at Icon... and not liking them one bit.  She walked right up to me.  Asked for a light.  Said her name was "Edie" and that she was gonna fix all this.

 

Suddenly I felt weak.  I needed another drink.

[tidge]

On 2/23/2023 at 8:54 AM, Snarky said:

I remember on live an old original Positron.

 

I have a memory of what must have been in the first month of Live: My first character (Inv/EM Tanker) was on a Positron TF in which slowly every quit. I want to believe that the first left after an hour, but after 4 hours most everyone had had enough. In those days, I don't think you could START a TF without a minimum number of players... so I logged off for the night, and the next day I decided to try to finish it by my lonesome. And I did! It wasn't pleasant.

 

Fast forward to 3+ years of Homecoming: On a lark, I will often take characters through that original arc... I'm shocked at how much easier it can be with a semi-kitted character.

[Velvet]

I've been with the game since launch, off and on. (I played a few months a year usually).

Herding whole zones into a dumpster or rail car on a Fire/Ice tank because burnpatch+icepatch and because no target caps. Learning to climb buildings by parabolic jumping on windowsills with combat jumping because SJ wasn't available till after zones started going vertical. Changing enhancements every 5ish levels, and picking your next contact based on which enhancements they sell, since a central vendor wasn't really available and origin mattered. Having to take fitness on -every- build just to keep up with endurance costs. Sprinting for miles and miles.

Between the lack of good travel powers and the way that hero missions like to send you from zone to zone, lower level content was just a lot of transit, and teleport pool almost guaranteed you a team. It was a weird time. Fun though.

[Greycat]

On 2/27/2023 at 7:03 AM, tidge said:

Fast forward to 3+ years of Homecoming: On a lark, I will often take characters through that original arc... I'm shocked at how much easier it can be with a semi-kitted character.

 

Well, Posi *has* changed... and yeah, Posi 1 is pretty simply soloable, even without worrying all that much about "kit."

[Wyldkard]

On 2/15/2023 at 9:12 AM, TheOtherTed said:

I started some time after Issue 6, and much of what I could say has already been said.  However, the one thing I remember most is the team-friendly nature of the game.  Not just in terms of design, but also in terms of the players.

 

On the design front, there's no quibbling over loot, no such thing as a "useless" AT, and the game introduced the first level-matching system I'd ever known about (and for a long time, the only one I'd ever seen).  Granted, that first system was a bit clumsy and open to exploitation, but at least there was an attempt to get different level players together.

 

On the people front, in my experience it was pretty rare to have a truly "bad" team.  Borderline incompetent teams, sure, but that just meant more jokes to be made and stories to be told.   Sometimes the game would surreptitiously change from "Beat Down the Bad Guys" to "Keep Character X Alive."  Plus, there was often that magical moment when seemingly bad teams just sort of fell into a groove, almost by accident, and became a force of destruction.

 

I'm sure people will say that's all still true, but before the sun started to set, I noticed a steady trickle of players who came in with expecations gained in other, bigger MMOs.  More and more people had the attitude that a team "needs" a "healer," or needs a tank - and, along with that, a surprising amount of people would blame the tanks or "healers" for not doing their jobs.  Other vets may remember otherwise, but I remember people being pointlessly and unnecessarily combative about who should have been doing what when, and quitting with bitter parting words when a relative old-timer like me would say "We can make this work" and why.

 

Not a happy note to end on, maybe, but I remember my teaming experiences in those first few years quite fondly.

 

I was often amazed at how well pick-up teaming worked in early CoH compared to other games (where it's often hard to get a team together at all). My brother and I often used to just roll into a zone, yell "LFM for <whatever>" and boom, requests to join would pop in. No character seemed irrelevant (though of course some were more useful than others) and the weird combos we ended up with made up a lot of the fun.

 

As for "keep character X alive", I'd have to say that sometimes the situation became "X is gonna die no matter what, what can we do to make it as amusing as possible?". (More than a few screencaps of hilarious faceplants were made.)

 

It's true that as builds and ATs become more streamlined and focused on their primary function, players seemed to start to pay more attention to "balanced" or "strong" teams. Even so, CoX is still the best game I've ever played for just grabbing some people together on the fly and bamfing them all to the next content, just being a big ball of mayhem on the way.

 

(Edit: as you pointed out, the (mostly) lack of inventory to manage and loot to worry about just meant we could get on with playing the game and having fun - I thought it was a genius move on Cryptic's part.)

Edited March 5, 2023 by Wyldkard

[srmalloy]

On 3/4/2023 at 2:29 PM, Velvet said:

Between the lack of good travel powers and the way that hero missions like to send you from zone to zone, lower level content was just a lot of transit,

This is a design feature of virtually every MMO; increasing travel time means that you spend more time in game not actively earning XP, which stretches out the time you spend getting a character to level cap. For subscription games, this means that you are paying more. This was something that drove me up the wall in SWTOR, where the world maps were designed so that you could be sent somewhere literally a hundred feet from where you were, but because there was an unclimbable barrier in your way, you had to go a mile or more around out of your way to get there. And the Jedi classes that had a Force Leap ability could leap across a hundred-foot gap or straight up... but only if there was an enemy at the other side to attack with the jump.

[Velvet]

8 hours ago, srmalloy said:

This is a design feature of virtually every MMO; increasing travel time means that you spend more time in game not actively earning XP, which stretches out the time you spend getting a character to level cap. For subscription games, this means that you are paying more. This was something that drove me up the wall in SWTOR, where the world maps were designed so that you could be sent somewhere literally a hundred feet from where you were, but because there was an unclimbable barrier in your way, you had to go a mile or more around out of your way to get there. And the Jedi classes that had a Force Leap ability could leap across a hundred-foot gap or straight up... but only if there was an enemy at the other side to attack with the jump.

Oh, I'm fully aware, and -this- was the motivation behind most anti-XP-farming policies as well. They claimed it was for game balance, but it was really for -time- balance. That mentality sticks around, even when time is no longer what you're paying for.

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by Velvet
Change tense to match conversation, and added some wording clarity, hopefully?

[MoonSheep]

really enjoying this thread, a lot of good memories

 

i remember how challenging the respec TFs were - especially for people on their first run to 50. many times i’ve seen that reactor blow and all 8 of us be dumped outside

 

frostfire used to be the biggest event under lvl 20 too. getting into a good team running the arc would be a good evening sorted

 

playing in summer until it started to get light around 4am and the birds started chirping.. time to go to bed!

[WanderingAries]

I've legit walked uphill, both ways, in snow/rain/wind, to school growing up.

 

...

 

Oh wait, not that kinda thread. 😮

[TheOtherTed]

5 hours ago, WanderingAries said:

Oh wait, not that kinda thread.

 

I don't know, seems like a natural segue at this point.

 

 

(Warning:  Dana Carvey's solo bits may not be to everyone's tastes.  Consult your doctor before watching.)