The Old Days

[UltraAlt]

16 hours ago, pawstruck said:

Before "furry" was a word that anyone had ever heard of, I became friends with a group of them on accident.

 

lol. "Furry" was word used by people long before CoH was released.

 

I wasn't sure how far back, but ... take it away quick google search results ....

"The specific term furry fandom was being used in fanzines as early as 1983, and had become the standard name for the genre by the mid-1990s, when it was defined as "the organized appreciation and dissemination of art and prose regarding 'Furries', or fictional mammalian anthropomorphic characters"." -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_fandom#:~:text=The specific term furry fandom,or fictional mammalian anthropomorphic characters".

 

oh, I'm old ..... and feeling it today ...

[Saiyajinzoningen]

combat without travel power suppression.

 

that gorilla guild that was popular for a month and then vanished

 

high level ambush spawns in lower levels wandering around

 

pre enhancement diversification!

 

leveling pacts (bring these back)

[Techwright]

20 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Kids today will never know the joy of Hovering across Kings Row, Perez Park, or the Hollows.

Uphill, both ways, causing a snowstorm...and we liked it!

 

 

The golden days of tanking an entire level or neighborhood, then running around the corner to literally dumpster dive while the range strikers made mincemeat of swarms of opponents.

 

The halcyon days when one could make 10-second exposure daguerreotype pictures under Atlas because the Rikti invasions slowed everything down so drastically.

 

Hunting the first Winter Lords by climbing the escape stairs on the side of KR buildings because we didn't even have hover yet.

 

Running the gauntlet in The Hollows because a certain officer thought he had to always send us to the buildings in the back of the zone to do missions.  Then being thankful for hover because we could go over all that.  Then realizing a better, faster way was to hover up to the War Walls ledge, and run around it all.

 

Taking 3 hours to clear one massive room of Tsoo sorcs who were ferocious back then at healing, hitting, and teleporting. Massive debt, yet not one player quit.

[biostem]

22 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Kids today will never know the joy of Hovering across Kings Row, Perez Park, or the Hollows.

I remember a time when the popular thing was to create "realistic" or "unpowered" builds, where your only travel powers consisted of hurdle + combat jumping.  Trying to survive a trip whilst under the canopy of Perez Park, with only that, or maybe hover if you were lucky, was a truly nail-biting experience.

Edited September 12, 2023 by biostem

[Ironblade]

My favorite memory was being on a character about level 15 or so in The Hollows.  This was back in the day when the gate to Atlas Park was a major hub of activity so there were probably 30 or 40 characters loitering in the area.

 

I saw a group of high level characters exit a mission and head toward the gate.  Then I saw a level 50 Malta ambush spawn and start chasing them.  The carnage was incredible.  Dozens of characters dead in seconds.

[Go0gleplex]

The frantic runs thru the forest trails of Perez....and getting lost 9 times out of 10 on the way to and from mission sites.   Pounding Hellions in Galaxy cause I was tired of dealing with Skulls.  Being able to jump into a group of 20 mobs with my Tank and play punching bag with little worry while my team members used me as ground zero for AoE strikes. 

Exploring some of the more artistic areas during missions such as Oranbega and Dark Astoria.  My first step onto the battlefield with the Rikti was really memorable...as was my first run at the Terra Volta respec. 

 

Of course memories of my first few game sessions; running around rescuing every civi I saw under assault thinking they might have a mission for me...and then realizing how contacts worked. lol  

[Greycat]

On 9/10/2023 at 10:38 AM, Yomo Kimyata said:

Back in the good old days, a luck charm was actually worth something!

 

*snort*

 

I remember beta when everyone looking at the market was *sure* Boresight was going to make them rich on the market. Yeah... no.

[Mjolnerd]

The cape mission.

 

Broadcasting that you'd pay however-many million inf to tag along on someone's fortune teller mission, because you'd somehow missed it yourself and there wasn't a way to go back and get missions from contacts you'd out-leveled.

 

People accumulating so much debt that they'd delete the character outright rather than try to dig their way out of that hole.

 

Dying multiple times trying to sprint across Steel Canyon from one train station to the other because the yellow and green lines hadn't been combined yet.

[ivanhedgehog]

That first time me and my wife got in a Frostfire. It was glorious. Hooked us from I6 to shutdown.

[Sir Myshkin]

Taxibots.

[srmalloy]

On 9/10/2023 at 8:38 AM, Yomo Kimyata said:

Back in the good old days, a luck charm was actually worth something!

And before the 'kinder, gentler' rework of The Hollows, hunting green Madness Mages in the south end was a good way to farm Luck Charms.

[Mjolnerd]

15 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

And before the 'kinder, gentler' rework of The Hollows, hunting green Madness Mages in the south end was a good way to farm Luck Charms.

 

I'm trying desperately to construct a hilarious joke here involving Luck Charms, the color green, and the fact that it's the magic-themed enemy group in the game, and I'm coming up short, so I'm just going to post this picture instead and trust that you'll all laugh at my (purely theoretical) comedic genius:

 

 

[Gulbasaur]

On 9/10/2023 at 4:20 PM, Greycat said:

Also, on a different character (the one who'd be my first 50,) doing missions with a team in the Hollows and seeing this white floating thing come out of the door and fly off... hooked on Kheldians since.

I remember during the first valentine's day event event when villains and heroes could crossover for the first time, and a villain whispering me on my peacebringer asking how I did that after I transformed.

[Lusiphur Malache]

Been a blaster main since launch.  First time seeing a blapper start with a punch changed my life.  Premature nuking was a quick death sentence.  Tankers ruled the world and they knew it.  Just when you finally got to choose a cool power, Fitness pool reared its' ugly head.

[WumpusRat]

On 9/11/2023 at 8:32 PM, Mjolnerd said:

Dying multiple times trying to sprint across Steel Canyon from one train station to the other because the yellow and green lines hadn't been combined yet.

That's one of the things I remember most about old-school CoH. Yellow and Green tram lines.

"Okay, so you want to come join us in Peregrine and you're in Atlas. So you'll need to hop the yellow rail to Steel Canyon, then run north through the zone and hop the green rail to Talos, then run over to the docks area and hop through the ferry to get to the island..."

<and 10m later when they were halfway there>

"Oh dang, the person he was sidekicked to just had to bail. We're going to need to recruit another person to sidekick them..."

[FFFF]

Great topic!

 

• Respec missions used to be so hard! The mission itself wasn't that tough, but the folks who often showed up on that mission often had gimped builds. I had a Force Field Defender with Medicine pool which I used to help a lot players through that mission. And even with that I think I still failed about 20% of the time.
• Hami-Os used to be the bees knees. True end game gear especially since Hami raids early on would fail a fair amount of the time.
• I remember when capes were announced! For the graphics capability of the day, I thought they looked great, clipping issues aside.
• Pre-travel suppression / non-diminishing returns PvP was really fun. It was completely unbalanced and had it's very own meta, typically blasters with an emp defender. It was obvious that many powers, range vs. melee, hit points, defense, tohit, debuffs, etc. were mechanics that were never devised with PvP in mind. It was flawed, but fun. Should have never been introduced in the game in that state.
• Putting badges in PvP zones...probably the most drama inducing thing that old devs could have done. A terrible idea that pitted two fervent communities against each other.
• Sappers were really fearsome back in the day. Pretty overpowered and could single-handedly cause entire team wipes.
• I loved manning a tank or a /rad controller and helping someone past the AVs in the Tina Macintyre or Maria Jenkins missions. Really felt like a hero.
• I loved the utter domination of all defender or controller teams. I've always liked that CoH didn't adhere to the strict tank-healer-dps trinity.
• I remember when AR/Dev blasters and Fire Tanks were meta. Then people discovered regen scrappers and fire controllers.
• Invulnerability used to be awful causing a character to be rooted in place. People still picked it because they wanted it to pair with Super Strength and be Superman.
• Post-ED blasters were really bad. I remember respec'ing one of mine and discovered that blasts wouldn't one-shot most minions. Post-ED tanks were almost as bad.
• Early game, the devs purposely obfuscated how powers actually worked. Frustratingly you only saw descriptions of high or severe damage, stuff like that. I remember the grassroots efforts to start cataloguing activation times and to better understand attack chains. How defense really worked (no one understood that 45% soft cap until player testing revealed it), resistance caps, stealth, tohit, or other significant game mechanics. I can say with certainty that most of the early players essentially played blind, picking suboptimal powers because a lot data was just hidden from us.
• I was blown away how popular badges became. I think CoH was one of the first games to implement them. I couldn't understand why some players obsessed with this particular metagame but I noticed that accomplishments/badges had proliferated and had become normalized in many other MMOs of that era.
• Sidekicking and Find Team functions, even at launch were pretty amazing. I remember being a level 16 fire tank who was invited to a level 30ish team mission. It was great to immediately access high level content. Fighting Crey with training and DOs though wasn't as great of an experience.

Thanks for indulging this trip through memory lane.

[srmalloy]

5 hours ago, FFFF said:

Hami-Os used to be the bees knees. True end game gear especially since Hami raids early on would fail a fair amount of the time.

And don't forget the additional complication that they screwed a significant part of the group over -- when Hami was defeated, he spawned Hami Buds, and the character that defeated one would get a Hami-O; this gave Blasters with AoE attacks an unfair advantage enabling them to get sometimes three or four HOs from a raid, while Defenders and Controllers often got none. I had a Fire/Rad Controller that was in nine Hami raids before she got a Hami-O.

[Faelia]

I remember starting during the first winter event and PLing a bunch of characters(mistake) to their 20s by killing the WLs and having zero clue wtf to do. Least I tried out a ton of powers before I made an actual character.

 

I remember badge hunting on villain side and having to sit at the door so the mission owner could kill the Hellions for the Hellspawned badge(as villains did not have perez to hunt them)

 

Laughing at a GM spawning in the original Mercy start area as they were a Claws/Nin stalker(said sets were garbage back in the day)

 

Getting kitted out on SOs(both pre-ed and post-ed) and turning the difficulty up.

 

Repeat Offenders shenanigans

 

Pre-colored powers, you took your powers that didn't mesh with your costume and you liked it.

 

Villain side actually being populated

 

Playing a Mercs/Traps MM(liking it) then watching in envy as a SG mates Bots/Dark killed 100x faster. I had just hit 32 and rerolled after that to Necro/Dark(was still a crap ton faster than mercs)

 

[srmalloy]

5 hours ago, Faelia said:

I remember starting during the first winter event and PLing a bunch of characters(mistake) to their 20s by killing the WLs and having zero clue wtf to do. Least I tried out a ton of powers before I made an actual character.

And the occasional bit of humor; I used to have a screenshot of my En/En Blaster in Perez Park during the first winter event, defeating a mob and getting the message "You receive 1337 experience"; I know it was unintended, but seeing a game message telling me I'd received "leet experience" tickled my funny bone.

[bustacap]

On 9/11/2023 at 10:32 PM, Mjolnerd said:

People accumulating so much debt that they'd delete the character outright rather than try to dig their way out of that hole.

 

Pretty sure that is what made go to WOW 8 months after launch (and a couple after Issue 1). Got tired of understanding what values the powers were (power details came way later).

 

Came back a couple of years later unsure of the issue but before the GFX upgrade and GR. 

 

1st hero at launch was definitely a FF/eng def. 6 slot those bubbles. 

[Healix]

Remember when everyone died and looked like a gingerbread man? It still happens from time to time...

 

 

 

[Psi-bolt]

I remember getting on a big team and street sweeping in Perez Park on a lowbie team.  That was really fun.  

[Psi-bolt]

On 9/23/2023 at 1:40 AM, FFFF said:

Great topic!

 

• Early game, the devs purposely obfuscated how powers actually worked. Frustratingly you only saw descriptions of high or severe damage, stuff like that. I remember the grassroots efforts to start cataloguing activation times and to better understand attack chains. How defense really worked (no one understood that 45% soft cap until player testing revealed it), resistance caps, stealth, tohit, or other significant game mechanics. I can say with certainty that most of the early players essentially played blind, picking suboptimal powers because a lot data was just hidden from us.

Thanks for indulging this trip through memory lane.

 

This used to drive me so nuts.  I also remember that even after they added real numbers, Statesman would occasionally make comments to the effect that people didn't really need them to play the game.   Absolutely insane.

[nebber]

One of my best memories early on, when the game was new, was the most hillarious to me. I  was on a PUG against 5th Column and we were very outmatched. We stood at the entrance of a room with a tightly packed mob and had no idea how to proceed, when the kinetics hero, who was in a clown coustme, said "watch this!"  He turned on repel and sprinted through the mob sending them flying everywhere.  He was just about back out the door when they all stood up, drew machine guns, and peppered him in the back, and he faceplanted at our feet. The comic timing of it was fantastic. It also showed me just how wonderfully expansive and variable this game was, in that I just witnessed a human pinball display and a clown get gunned down by nazis. 

 

I really, really still miss PVP back in the day, I most fondly remember Siren's Call, it was packed in the months following its intoduction.  Before travel suppression and ED, it was so fast and dynamic and fun, but since it was capped at lvl 30, no one was terribly overpowered.  Joustimg with bonesmasher, dodging Stalkers AS, hunting the bounties, seeing a variety of ATs participating, it was always such a rush.

[srmalloy]

8 hours ago, nebber said:

The comic timing of it was fantastic. It also showed me just how wonderfully expansive and variable this game was, in that I just witnessed a human pinball display and a clown get gunned down by nazis. 

I'm reminded of a mission where my AR/EM teamed with a bunch of randos, and we were doing a Vahz mission; we'd found a room/corridor with what looked like two intermingled spawns, and we were trying to figure a way to get just one. So I stepped up and volunteered to pull with my shiny new Sniper Rifle attack. I lined up on an Abomination, Build Up, fired, and it went down. None of the others noticed. Build Up had recharged, so I did it again. Abomination goes down, nobody's paying attention. Three members of the team wanted me to keep shooting to see how many I'd have to drop before they paid attention, but a Scrapper said "Screw this, I'm not waiting", charged the Vahz, and gave us our own little Leroy Jenkins moment as both spawns aggro'd, and with our low-teens minimal resistance, we got chewed up. I backed away shooting, getting three more before the melee characters went down, and I backpedaled to the elevator, where I waited for the 3/4 of the team caught in the melee to come back from the hospital.