What does City of Heroes mean to you?

[Skyhawke]

So, with the big influx of new folks, the group of old guard and all points in between we have a wide spectrum of players. Each of us has a reason we’re here. I think it’d be kinda cool to see what all brings and keeps us in the City. Devs and GMS are encouraged to reply as well. 

 

For me, this game is comfort food for the soul. It was my first real foray into MMOs. I played with people I knew and got to know the others in our SG (go Hrafn Warband!) and climbed out of my shell a lot.

 

I’m a huge story buff and this game’s chock full of stories. Before COH, I really only played single player RPGs and would digest lore like there was no tomorrow. Getting to know this game’s world and it’s ever adapting story was and is still a treat.

 

Then there’s the superhero slant. Huuuuuge comic book nerd that I am, this game was like a dream come true. I remember before getting into beta just hanging on the boards, shooting the breeze, swapping character concepts and Hero Machine pics. Sky-Hawke started in Hero Machine and grew from there. Such a great memory.

 

When the game sunset, it sucked. A lot. When I found out about Homecoming, I was so excited I was telling everyone! So now, I’m here for all that I mentioned, the nostalgia, the warm fuzzy feeling of a comfortable blanket and to be a part of this community as the game marches on.

 

In short, this is one of my happy places.

[Snarky]

A place where I can exercise my OCD without getting physically exhausted or mentally drained.  Just chill and play cartoons 

[sbloyd]

For me, it's a "safe space" where I can interact with people who accept me at face value, hanging out with Crystal Dragon and Bearserker and Roz and all the other chuckleheads on Everlasting.  A place I can decompress after a long day of teaching, and a long commute home.

 

And we beat up fascists and space aliens, too.

[Go0gleplex]

Scratches that Superhero itch that tabletop RPGs are unable to reach.  I've my tabletop tiny starship games and fantasy RPGs for the other moods. 

[Coyotedancer]

It's alternately a thing that I enjoy a lot and a thing that sometimes annoys the heck out of me... And I accept that conflicting nature.

[MonteCarla]

In 2005 I discovered the perfect game for me.

- I've always loved superheroes, but never imagined a game could cover the wide range of powers they have.

- The costume creator is just amazing, even today.

- The cooperative nature of gameplay, and best support sets in any game ever make me feel special on teams.

- Teaming is naturally rewarded, and always worth doing, but I can also solo in the slower Australian evenings

- The community is amazing, fun and non-toxic. I feel free to be me here.

 

I'm so glad it's back. Champions Online was a good stand-in, but kind of messed with the support sets and teaming aspects of CoH 

 

 

[MoonSheep]

partly a game, partly a digital third space - i sometimes log on just to see who’s about

[Psyonico]

City wasn't my first MMO (that goes to RuneScape, it if that doesn't count, Guild Wars) but it was (and still is) the one I played the most.  The sheer depth of the character creator is enough to get lost in, and I'm still finding costume items that I know were on live but I didn't know about.

 

It wasn't until I found the Repeat Offenders network that I really got hooked on the game.  My first toon and namesake was a Mind/Forcefield, and I quickly realized that healing wasn't the end all be all it was in Guild Wars (and other MMOs I've played since).  I've always liked the support play style and City just does it so much better than any other MMO I've played.

[cranebump]

Hmmm…a lot of things. But I’ll go with inspiration, camaraderie, and endless fun.

[Jacke]

City of Heroes was my first MMO.

 

I was introduced to City by a good friend in the Summer of 2005.  By the Fall, I had my own copies of City of Heroes and City of Villains and my own account.  I always maintained its subscription, even when I took breaks from City...except when I tried out City F2P...and soon went back on subscription.

 

Like @Psyonico, it was finding Repeat Offenders about Summer 2006 that solidified my connection to City.  Having a cool group of players to team with and discuss all sorts of things make playing in City even better.

 

The less said about the events from 2012 Aug 31st to Nov 30th, the better.

 

Before and after, I'd tried other MMOs, other games.  If there was a good friend on a game, I stayed longer.  (SWTOR has my record for most returns to a game.  Love the idea.  Some of those implementation details though....)

 

But none of them were City of Heroes.  During this time, I worked to keep things going for Repeat Offenders.

 

Then in 2019 April 24th, City of Heroes returned to the public in the form of Homecoming.  I started playing that first day, as did many Repeat Offenders and others I knew.

 

Now in 2024 January 04th, Homecoming is back in the news with the Official Licence Agreement with NCSOFT to provide City of Heroes.

 

Interest in Homecoming has taken off.  More Repeat Offenders and others have come back.  Many new players are discovering City of Heroes for the first time.

 

It's a grand occasion to spend some time in the City we love. 😺

[KITANYA]

Very much!

 

SO much nostalgia!

 

I played it at release and so many good memories!

[Water]

It IS the MOST playable game I've ever played. The customisability of the UI is incredible and NO OTHER GAME has the same pliability. I believe it could be my most played game by hours. It really, honestly, experientially has the most helpful community in any game I've played. It isn't without its faults and neither are aspects of the community at times, which has been educational AND comedic. I've watched people grow from live to today who have introduced their children to it who hopefully will introduce their own children to it one day, possibly already have.

 

We are gamers of as many varieties which exist and it is here where we congregate. Glad to be here, happy to be here, want to be here, am here.

 

(complete fan obvs!) 😄 

 

 

[DukeGude]

17 hours ago, sbloyd said:

For me, it's a "safe space" where I can interact with people who accept me at face value, hanging out with Crystal Dragon and Bearserker and Roz and all the other chuckleheads on Everlasting.  A place I can decompress after a long day of teaching, and a long commute home.

 

And we beat up fascists and space aliens, too.

Although I didn't have this in mind when I "came home" to Homecoming, it is certainly true - that you can count on even the strangers in the game and the chars you've never seen before in LFG teams to be decent people (incl kheldians) that you can either form friendship with or simply enjoy a session of TF.

 

And a game of enormous variety in choices which can leave some with analysis paralysis, but if you can take it at your own pace... boy, it's got an immense amount of replayability. For me this is the goldilocks of the games in many aspects - and the community being the forefront of that.

Edited February 2 by DukeGude
wording

[WuTang]

16 hours ago, sbloyd said:

For me, it's a "safe space" where I can interact with people who accept me at face value, hanging out with Crystal Dragon and Bearserker and Roz and all the other chuckleheads on Everlasting.  A place I can decompress after a long day of teaching, and a long commute home.

 

And we beat up fascists and space aliens, too.

Everlasting is the place!

 

I'm new, so by no means an "old guard," and the game, at 20 years old, is shiny and new to me. But the flexibility of CoH in character creation and power selection, the community: it's overall maturity, wittiness, and willingness to help, the game play and styling, being laid-back and casual doesn't hurt the overall experience, and like @sbloydsaid, great place to chillax. Fun, pure fun, that's what it means to me.

[KITANYA]

Meant a lot to me when it came back

 

All my good memories came back 🙂

 

 

EVERLASTING IS THE PLACE!

 

Edited February 2 by KITANYA

[Mopery]

I have no life in real life, so I come to CoH to have no life in Paragon City for a change of scenery.

[DukeGude]

40 minutes ago, WuTang said:

Everlasting is the place!

 

I'm new, so by no means an "old guard," and the game, at 20 years old, is shiny and new to me. But the flexibility of CoH in character creation and power selection, the community: it's overall maturity, wittiness, and willingness to help, the game play and styling, being laid-back and casual doesn't hurt the overall experience, and like @sbloydsaid, great place to chillax. Fun, pure fun, that's what it means to me.

This is the great thing - old and new, hero and villain - regardless of where we came from or where we at at in the game, everyone is free and encouraged to interact and enjoy spending time in the game.

Edited February 2 by DukeGude

[Xalon]

I gotta say that CoH is quite unique when compared with other mmos. Even DCUO and CO, which have many similarities are both quit different from CoH. CoH has the most unique storylines about being a superhero or villain and I like that we get to see what goes on between fights and leading up to big events. Even being 20 years old, once you play a few weeks and get used to the graphics, it is soooooo much fun!!!!

 

I'm not an altaholic so I do not plan on making dozens of characters. After my Arachnos solider and Kheldian get to 50, I'll make a resistance and praetorian so I can see all that 1-20 content. And I might make a normal hero and villain too, but that would be it. Anything I didn't get to see or do in Oro on my first two characters I will do on my others. 

 

I started with WOW as my first mmorpg. But I wanted to play CoH first, though the system requirements were beyond my computers capabilities back then. WOW is a game that has just about everything and playing CoH, I see that it too has everything. A big expansive world with tons of lore and activities, but also comics and other stuff outside the game, which makes it even better! 

 

I also love that CoH is not a game you should rush. With things being timed a bit slower than other mmos for rotation powers, it lets us take a bit more time and really experience everything as superpowered beings! I love it!!!!!

 

I am looking for a SuperGroup for my villain and hero, both on the main server. I want to find SGs that want to get everything for their base, as well as do some base attacks/defenses. If anyone knows a welcoming SG, just msg me ingame     @xalon (villain) and  @xalonmg (hero)

 

Have fun and see you in the city!

[ThreedddHero]

This is the game that never dies. When I first started playing, I think my granddaughter was four and my grandson was a newborn. The girl is in college now and the boy is driving. My granddaughter played when she was 6 or 7. I'd set her up in a cave somewhere on a solo mission and let her have at it. Best babysitter ever when the wife and I needed to clean the house or something. Hearing her yelling, "Are you kidding me?" :::Boom! Kablammo! Kapow! SFX coming from the den:::  Love it.

Edited February 20 by ThreedddHero

[Pokeysnow73]

This game has so many memories from the old Live servers, Brimming with players. All standing around at Atlas, chatting and even then chat was a mature thing, Always kid friendly and being polite to others. Awesome to be back with the same feels. 

[ThreedddHero]

2 hours ago, Pokeysnow73 said:

This game has so many memories from the old Live servers, Brimming with players. All standing around at Atlas, chatting and even then chat was a mature thing, Always kid friendly and being polite to others. Awesome to be back with the same feels. 

 

This is my 3rd go at it. I had 2 paid accounts and like 32 toons on the original incarnation and it was tough to take when it shut down. I think I got back in in 2019 around the time my wife passed away and I just couldn't stay focused enough. Now I'm old and my hand-eye coordination is absolutely pitiful, but the game is still as fun as ever.

[ivioin]

As cliche' as this sounds "everything". It was my first MMO I ever played. It helped me while I was in the military during and after deployments to Iraq.

[ThreedddHero]

2 hours ago, ivioin said:

As cliche' as this sounds "everything". It was my first MMO I ever played. It helped me while I was in the military during and after deployments to Iraq.

Oh man, I would have loved having this in the early 80's in the Navy. I played a ton of cards, Statis-Pro Sports games, D&D, and even did a play by mail version of D&D that you did one turn a month. Yes, a month. 🙂 

[JJDrakken]

Let me explain why this game, just plain ol' MMO of a game. Means to me.

 

I was from Beta Blue till Sunset, Pre-HC, HC Day 1.  This game has "LITERALLY" saved my life. I spent my first year on Triumph, mostly solo and not talking to folks. (Long before I realized about my Anxiety/Social Anxiety, Depression, PTSD, & OCD was revealed). When I moved to Virtue, I met a wonderful community there. I made friends, I made "family" there. I enjoyed everything we did, the talks, the laughs, the stupid shit we did.  I had a very "STRONG" group there that I led and laughed with.

 

I helped many of them come out their own shells as I still hid in mine. I help some get married, others to grow up to fine adults, I made close "family" friends online.  I looked foreword to every day gaming with them when I was not at work.  When this game shut down, It put me in a funk(Mind you I had a mental meltdown before game release, was trying figure out how to put the pieces together, honestly game gave me a lot time to just slowly fix that with the others). 

 

But then I was back to where I was, sure the really close friends have stuck it out with me, we've gamed and laughed. But I lost a lot of the community I was part of. I use to help out the Cape DJs, I would PL the RP'rs, even RP'd and ERP once(Man it was so boring, I was team leading on a Ill/Kin Controller on a +4 TF at the time). When I sent one my tells in team chat. ROFL, folks where laughing so hard, they was JJ, your Team Leading a +4 TF on an Illusion Kin, bullshitting with us, working on a Mid's Build and doing that, ROFL my guy your skilled. While it was face reddening, it was also funny. (I never even enjoyed ERPs, but someone wanted to try it out with me).

 

So I was left alone in my thoughts again, RL was breaking me hard, my physical health was getting worse(Found out I have nearly a fully arthritic skeleton back then and start of disk degeneration).  I lost my job at the time, do to all pain I was in, I couldn't show up, so they let me go(11yrs down the drain). I was ready to just say fuck it. I had huge bottle of pills and a handle of Jack Daniels, I was not going stop till I didn't wake up.

 

Well, odd thing here. One my close buds, who never has called me before IRL, just us bullshitting online, called me that day.  Few hours before I was going start. He just said he had odd feeling and his brain said to call me.  He coaxed out of me what I was going to do. After a hours of talking, he and his family moved out of my state to their state and help me set myself up near them.  Hell their daughter calls me Uncle J. (I''ll kill for that goofy niece of mine, lol).

 

Since then return of CoH, it still means a lot to me. But honestly not as much as it did. While I agree our community is still better then most MMOs, it's far from what it was. A lot of anger and vitriol rolls around in it, I've seen it directed at me in spades. Which in turn causes me to seethe and let some of that out on others here, I hate when that happens, I honestly do. As folks have heard, I suffered a spinal/heart injury that put me on SSDI, So I have nothing but time on my hands and spend a decent amount in CoH.

 

I try help/teach as best I can to our new players, but honestly. The troll accounts that bomb me at random times with hate filled words, causes me to always play less & less and not want to interact with our "Community" most time.

 

But just as that last era ended of the Virtue Crew of Good TImes(Many of them have passed on or have just flat out vanished). I have found a small group of folks here that still keep me coming back. So if you see @JJDrakken in game, say hi. If you get no response. I'm very distracted/focused or busy telling someone to piss off, cuz they wanna be asshat to me or the team I'm leading. 😉

 

Y'all be well.

[wei yau]

This game is an outlet for my creativity. I love everything about the process from creating origin stories, designing costumes, character RP and leveling up the character. 

I'm a great writer and I cannot draw at all, so the character creator and the supportive community here allow me to express my creativity in a way that I couldn't without this game. 

 

I am fortunate enough to be part of a couple of SGs on Everlasting who welcome and accept my severe case of Alt-Attention Deficit Disorder. I am always creating new characters and bringing them to RP, in addition to continuing to develop long-time existing characters.