The Old Days

[cranebump]

13 hours ago, rolandgrey said:

To Hell with the Old Days.

I don't think sharing a few memories=glorification of every aspect of the way things used to be. Sometimes, it's just this:

 

[Snarky]

35 minutes ago, cranebump said:

I don't think sharing a few memories=glorification of every aspect of the way things used to be. Sometimes, it's just this:

 

Deep cut wow!  Honestly, much like the old days, that song had a lot of nostalgia and was missing a bit of ...other things.   lol.  But it sure showed how powerful Billy Joel's voice was.  The man just had tons of talent and drive.  Really put in the years of effort to hone it to a fine edge.

[cranebump]

10 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Deep cut wow!  Honestly, much like the old days, that song had a lot of nostalgia and was missing a bit of ...other things.   lol.  But it sure showed how powerful Billy Joel's voice was.  The man just had tons of talent and drive.  Really put in the years of effort to hone it to a fine edge.

Well, I wasn't trying to cut anybody. I was just thinking about where, after extoling the past, Joel says, The good ol' days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems. Then he goes out in the yard for a beer and to listen to his '45s.:-)

 

Joel is one of my favorite songwriters. But he ain't written a thing (with lyrics) since the 90s. He said, I figured I had my say. 🙂

Edited October 11, 2023 by cranebump

[Snarky]

5 minutes ago, cranebump said:

Well, I wasn't trying to cut anybody. I was just thinking about where, after extoling the past, Joel says, The good ol' days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems. Then he goes out in the yard for a beer and to listen to his '45s.:-)

 

Joel is one of my favorite songwriters. But he ain't written a thing (with lyrics) since the 90s. He said, I figured I had my say. 🙂

I cannot figure if you are jesting...?

 

"deep cut" generally refers (in music history lingo) to a song no one else references

[cranebump]

1 minute ago, Snarky said:

"deep cut" generally refers (in music history lingo) to a song no one else references

Ohhhh...I getcha now. Heh...okay...And I don't know whether I'm jesting or not, either.:-)

[srmalloy]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

"deep cut" generally refers (in music history lingo) to a song no one else references

One of my character names would be a 'deep cut',then, being a play on the title of a 45-year-old song — Rolande, the headless Trollkin Gunner...

[cranebump]

39 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

One of my character names would be a 'deep cut',then, being a play on the title of a 45-year-old song — Rolande, the headless Trollkin Gunner...

Warren Zevon. Right on.

[tidge]

My memories of Rescue the Fortune Teller as a mission were these:

• When debt was burdensome, it wasn't that hard to end up with that mission, but...
• If you played with buddies (no SGs!) and avoided debt it was possible to miss it.

I'm also remembering that since actual travel powers weren't available until level 14 (and Fitness wasn't inherent) so there was a lot of motivation to play relatively low-risk content (with PUGs) to level up fast enough to get that precious travel power.

 

Specific to this mission, it used to be a very painful one to do... especially without a travel power navigating Perez Park. On Homecoming (and all my memories of using Flashback on Live), I'm always sent to Perez Park. I feel like on Live I may have had a single instance where the cave door wasn't in Perez Park.

 

Here is a place where my memory is foggy: I want to say that prior to badges being a thing, the game was somehow keeping track of some completed arcs/missions. I feel like several of my Issue 0 slow/grind characters didn't have to redo certain arcs/missions.

[biostem]

32 minutes ago, tidge said:

I'm also remembering that since actual travel powers weren't available until level 14 (and Fitness wasn't inherent) so there was a lot of motivation to play relatively low-risk content (with PUGs) to level up fast enough to get that precious travel power.

I remember semi-regularly joining a low level team, back in the day, and street sweeping in the lower level hazard zones - plenty of enemies, relative safety, fewer loading screens, and CoH has always had relatively good individual enemy XP vs mission completion XP, so it worked out rather well.  

[carroto]

The standard if you wanted to be sure you'd successfully complete the RSF was nukes + shivans for the final mission.  I failed that SF more than once with PUGs that just couldn't get past the FP.  The "Master of" RSF badge was a real accomplishment.

 

I remember being quite annoyed by the state of PVP at villains launch since as a villain player with a level cap of 40 and no way to get Hamidon enhancements, the heroes had a significant advantage in how they could slot their powers.

[CFIndustries]

On 10/10/2023 at 7:15 PM, rolandgrey said:

I will never understand anybody who fetishizes "The Good Old Days."  There's no such thing.  EVERYTHING can be improved upon, and you shouldn't hate those improvements just because people are having fun without being forced to deal with you.

Odd…didn't feel like this thread (for the most part) was fetishizing or even "we enjoyed some of the hard ways of doing things"…I thought it was just reminiscing either about memorable moments or shared hardships.

 

It is a bit of a bummer that alts have become so powerful at 50 that a team of 8 becomes "one badass and a bunch of hangers-ons" or "8 people who happen to be solo'ing in the same mission" but…I think overall I still like the improvements despite the power creep.

 

At the same time, I'm happy to look back on the wierd shared experiences from "back in the old days."

[lemming]

On 10/11/2023 at 3:09 PM, tidge said:

Specific to this mission, it used to be a very painful one to do... especially without a travel power navigating Perez Park. On Homecoming (and all my memories of using Flashback on Live), I'm always sent to Perez Park. I feel like on Live I may have had a single instance where the cave door wasn't in Perez Park.

When Warwitch removed all the mission doors from deep within Perez, that was a huge improvement for character survival.

[srmalloy]

8 hours ago, lemming said:

When Warwitch removed all the mission doors from deep within Perez, that was a huge improvement for character survival.

Now if we could get 'door diversification' for the city zones — there are clickable doors all through each zone, but my characters keep getting sent to the same ones. For example, the fifth mission of the Synapse Task Force (after the first patrol mission) seems to be virtually certain to be at the west side of the skyscraper just west of the Siren's Call gate, and the Positron I mission right before the "jump into Oranbega" mission is always at the building just north of the Siren's Call gate. There are many other examples — Rick Davies' first mission, to retrieve the Clockwork sprocket, is always the same two doors in AP.

[Frozen Burn]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

Now if we could get 'door diversification' for the city zones — there are clickable doors all through each zone, but my characters keep getting sent to the same ones. For example, the fifth mission of the Synapse Task Force (after the first patrol mission) seems to be virtually certain to be at the west side of the skyscraper just west of the Siren's Call gate, and the Positron I mission right before the "jump into Oranbega" mission is always at the building just north of the Siren's Call gate. There are many other examples — Rick Davies' first mission, to retrieve the Clockwork sprocket, is always the same two doors in AP.

 

Many doors for story arcs and task forces are always the same door no matter what - this is intended.  Sometimes, if you read the story, it talks about that specific building or zone area in the mission dialogue, so it has to always be that door.  Others are random - this is also intended - also fitting the story.  

 

Knowing the door where a mission will be can be handy when trying to get through a task force quickly (like the Shard TFs)!  But there is still many missions out there in in TFs and story arcs that have random doors to keep things interesting.  

[ZeroSaint]

This is a weird one and not necessarily in-game, but I remember the old Forums back at launch AND I remember the original "Kill Skuls" thread- because when it happened we were all making stupid early memes and dropping them into the thread.   It was just absolutely a hilarious slice of "The way the internet was" and for some reason almost 20 years later it still makes me laugh.  The original forums were a thing to behold,  just such a wild and wonderful community.

[MrAxe]

My very first Frostfire (which went VERY badly) led to the creation of "The Predominantly Dead" sg. We never teamed again, however it was funny at the time.

[MoonSheep]

in the olden days i used to think that the “quit to desktop” option would make my character log out instantly

 

if i was in a PvP zone in a losing fight i would quit to desktop, thinking i had uncovered a leet hack to stop myself from dying

 

when in reality my motionless alt would still be online for characters zone to wail on until dead and then teabag me until the timer reached zero

[Ankylosaur]

I remember when Kheldians were new, someone on Pinnacle started up an all Kheldian SG.

 

It did not last long, and I think I even inherited the base.

 

But early on, when trying to level, it was fun traveling in a group of 8 Novas, sweeping the original Faultline since we could actually navigate it.

 

Oh and the early Quantums and Crystal shards were nasty...

Edited October 18, 2023 by Ankylosaur

[srmalloy]

6 hours ago, Ankylosaur said:

Oh and the early Quantums and Crystal shards were nasty...

And having to remember to log out and back in after teaming with a Kheldian, because having one on your team set a flag to enable Quantums and Cysts in your mission spawns, and the flag didn't clear when you left the team, so you'd keep getting them, even solo, until you logged out. And the flag was 'contagious' — once you had it set by teaming with a Kheldian, you could 'infect' other teams you joined with it, causing them to start getting Quantums and Cysts.

[Ankylosaur]

Oh - and the multi-pet controller thing. That was always fun! Getting your recharge high enough to get out 3 singularities or 9-12 imps - great stuff.

[brians9824]

Back in the old days the pain of so many powersets casting skills like force fields/speed boost on allies one at a time....

[mrgambit]

I remember having to sweet-talk every kin i met so my rocky backside could keep up haha

[Crysis]

On 10/9/2023 at 1:15 AM, Azari said:

I miss the original Rikti designs. I think their faces looked much better.

 

I wonder if it is possible to set up an old school COH server, that recreates the feel of classic early issues.

 

You’d have to get rid of IO’s, Enhancement Diversification (allowing you to 6-slot stuff), roll back a ton of nerfs, roll back the Global Defense Nerf, etc etc.

 

Honestly, as much fun as it was running around with Perma-MOG running on my Regen scrappers and tanking Hamidon, while trying to avoid the packs 9-10 fiery chimps chasing every Fire/Kin controller around while tankers rounded up entire zones at a time…..I can’t say I truly miss that.  It was horrifically, and in some cases, comically broken from a balance perspective back then.  

[Skyhawke]

On 10/16/2023 at 1:53 PM, MrAxe said:

My very first Frostfire (which went VERY badly) led to the creation of "The Predominantly Dead" sg. We never teamed again, however it was funny at the time.

 

I miss when a team would finish the Frostfire mission then spend 10 minutes ice surfing in that room like kids. Do one now and it's "gg", "ty", "tc" and everyone splits. The ice slides are still fun, stay and be goofy!

[Paradox Fate]

A distant memory in my mind is that somebody, as I started out in Galaxy City shortly before CoV was released, took me in (a Katana Scrapper ...? ) and toured me across the whole zone, explaining a ton of things to me like what the badges are for, the day job system, travel powers and how enhancements and slotting works. I wasn't able to pick everything up, but I did enjoy that this person went out their way to lend a new one a hand.

I then had some good time with sewer runs and eventually realized how messed up you are without a travel power in the Hollows, ha.

 

However, life kept me busy and I had to leave again until around Issue 13/14, where then I made a Fire/Kin Corruptor on Red Side. I was in a supergroup with a few peeps who enjoyed doing AE maps, do a /Kin was more than welcome for them while we had a few channels to be social in them during the maps. 

 

I long have forgotten who it was, exactly, who tutored me there in Galaxy City. Nor can I remember my hero name back then.

But you sparked that interest in me to keep my eyes on this game, and I do not regret playing it even now.

 

Thank you, whoever you have been, for everything.

 

(Yeah, yeah - It got a bit sappy.)