Official WD City of Heroes Thread

[El_Squid]

Wow! Reading your post makes me want to reup my subscription to CoH and play again. After the boys stopped playing CoH and began to hit L4D heavily, I kind of let CoH lapse into obscurity. Now, all online play has died and I have become a crotchety curmugeon that only plays Civ V.

Guess I will dust off the old heroes/villains and rejoin the fray.

[Stalemate]

When City of Heroes - Freedom launches later this year, everyone who once had a subscription will be able to access their accounts again, within certain limitations, free.

Also, new accounts can have an extended, free "trial" account which lets them experience about 75% of the entire game, but with a max. of 2 characters only.

[slgrieb]

Jim Butcher plays CoH as Harry Dresden, though occasionally he gets booted by an overzealous mod for running a copyrighted character

[Stalemate]

I recall hearing or reading about that somewhere... funny stuff.

[Stalemate]

You may be wondering why I'm still playing City of Heroes after 7 years, and still recommending it heartily.

Here's an example of why that is: http://goo.gl/iAPy4

This is an activity I'm coordinating on the Protector server. Some players contacted me about being their PR / coordinator for an idea they wanted to do, and given my experience at handling server wide events this was a different kind of challenge.

Granted, managing 18 other players in their individual activities while trying to preserve the central plotline common to almost all the events isn't easy, but it's worth it.

It's worth spending hours of my free time organizing activities for others when I see the impact player-led initiatives have. Think of it as "passing it forward", if you will. When I started playing, meatwad, Ilovetheusers and WebHead were waiting for me and took the time to show me around, gave me some pointers. I've been building off that concept.

That's what strikes me as different in this MMO: the community isn't out to cover you in n00b taunts. Most of them are willing to take some of their time to help you out. Some will even offer to team with you and answer your questions for as long as it takes.

In my 7 years I've led the supergroup WebHead had founded with Ilovetheusers and hudsonsmith for years. The Praesidium coalition became the largest group of SGs on any server (30 SGs at one point). I participated in the cross server organizations known as Player Event Resource Committee and the SuperOlympics and created my own: the Mentor Project (over 150 volunteers now). I've been asked to take Phantoms of War again, following a hiatus in leadership, and also another SG we had fused with: Paragon Punishers.

My fun from this game derives as much from exploring the new stuff like the Incarnate system as from seeing others getting to enjoy the game - whether it's their first time or from checking out the new content. So I keep looking for new ways to help out.

The game has grown in size, in content, in quality and now soon in modes of access. Getting the Going Rogue version ensures you not only get the latest expansion, but also can access City of Heroes and City of Villains. Going Rogue permits players to start a character of any archetype, and then at level 20 decide if it will continue on the side of good, or the side of evil.

If you like comic books and science fiction with a little fantasy thrown in, this is "it". The competition still can't compete, despite their foundations in established lore.

And if you do try the free version, or sign in to a previously used account (which will become a premium account automatically), look me up.

Oh, and if you're in Europe, you can now access the North American servers directly. The separation no longer exists.

[ilovetheusers]

Actually I think that you had a big hand in forming the SG too. We all had roles but it was work, though it was a labor of love. Is the base still up? I put a crapton of time into that...

I'll be back o odd nights when it goes free.

For me it was just too much time online vs spent with the wife and/or kids more than anything but now that the kids are out of the house I'm going to take a night or two and spend it playing again with the old team.

[Stalemate]

Actually I think that you had a big hand in forming the SG too. We all had roles but it was work, though it was a labor of love. Is the base still up? I put a crapton of time into that...

I'll be back o odd nights when it goes free.

For me it was just too much time online vs spent with the wife and/or kids more than anything but now that the kids are out of the house I'm going to take a night or two and spend it playing again with the old team.

We kept your spandex tights on the hanger.

The base is up, and despite one ugly addition Gazoo made that I never bothered to fix it's remained identical. I couldn't bear to change anything and when we fused with Paragon Punishers (which is now the main SG) we started using their base for function (raid ready too, even has a maze that Karlik made), and PoW base remains where I'd rather hang out for inventing, chilling out.

With the advent of "red star" leader roles I was asked to handle that rank in SG leadership (basically equivalent to our Field Marshall idea) in all the Paragon Punisher / PoW SGs on Protector, Virtue and justice, but I'll be honest in saying my involvement in SG matters and SG promotion is much, much less than before.

Investing more time and resource while never being sure it was worth the effort kinda killed it for me, but there's still activity - even if it's more casual. I think this will actually fit your availability better.

These days, I'm more involved in maintaining the Protector Vigilance global channel with a couple more mods. It's become the official activity channel of the server, leaving Jello Shooters to cater to the 18+ chatters. There are still other channels, some with competing objectives now that they've seen our growth, but this just proves Protector is still quite alive and kicking.

I created a calendar where some of the regular event runners were invited as editors, and I'm now integrating it into a basic website that StarGeek (frequent Paragon Wiki contributor) is also experimenting with. Add a Twitter feed on top of that, the administration of a channel on Protector's Ventrilo server, and my casual maintaining of the Mentor Project and my soon-to-be-confirmed rejoining the Player Event Resource Committee, the coordination or promotion of various server events for other people, and yeah, I keep busy.

But despite all that my actual online presence has dwindled - not because I find the game no longer appeals, but because when I'm on the actual gaming time is always less than management and PR time. So if I can't solo in hidden mode, I'll refrain from logging in on those evenings where I need a break.