RIP City of Heroes

Where to begin?

I guess I'll start by saying why I liked this game and why I am/was reluctant to try out other MMORPGs.

City of Heroes is built for casual play.  Logging on for 30 minutes is enough time to make progress on your character.  Sure you get more in game rewards by playing more, but the truth is you don't need to make a 40 hour a week commitment to make progress, even at end game.

City of Heroes is action packed.  If you are idling its your own damn fault.

I found a string of good people to play with.  The community in CoH is friendly and the server became your guild.

Those two things made up for its deficiencies, like lack of challenging content and the never ending grind for drops.


I first started playing because Sean and Sung gave good reviews.  Sung's review carried more weight; sorry Sean, you have a short attention span for games.  But when Sean stuck with it for more than 6 weeks I thought he might be onto something.  I of course chose the name Brass Justice because of a 15 year old joke.  (thanks Britt, who wouldn't let me be Steel Justice for that game of DC Heroes.  20 years later, I would much rather have the Brass Justice anecdote than the Steel Justice name).

So I hopped on the justice server with Sung and Sean and for a while we had a hoot.  Then we learned an acquaintance, Jeremy also played on justice with some of his friends.  We joined forces and had even more of a hoot.  To this day I remember Jeremy sniping the Envoy of Shadows from 'safe' range, then immediately dieing.  Jeremy hit level 50 and retired from the game, but not before getting me into a super group (or guild if you will).

My first super group was the Reluctant Heroes, and that proved prophetic.  That SG lasted exactly a week before the leader retired from the game and booted everyone out.  Jeremy got me into the Experts of Justice.

The EoJ was a group of folks that knew each other from Seattle, and grabbed some strays from whereever.    I don't know when they grabbed Liz, but she's also been in the EoJ forever.  They were a good bunch of players, and once again, a hoot.

About the time City of Villains dropped, I quit the game.  My primary, Brass, had hit about a dozen road blocks.  End game at the time consisted of facing bosses you had no prayer of beating without a big group.  Jeremy had retired, the EoJ weren't incredibly active and I got frustrated.


About 15 months later I returned for good.  EoJ was a little more active, a hoot was had once more.  Somewhere along the line I got an invite to my next guild Drow and Friends.

Vyze and Nive ran D&F, and D&F was an off shoot of an Everquest guild.  Completely different vibe from EoJ, which was a lot like sitting in you basement playing the play station with your friends.  D&F was as close to a raiding guild as you could get in CoH. 

So two guilds no waiting, and a hoot was had once more.  Except that the leadership of EoJ and D&F both quit that game.  Doh.

Enter Mermoine.  I have no shame in saying this.  Mermoine is a better player than I am.  It's not even close.  And once you get to know her, there isn't anyone you will like better.  It takes a while, because she doesn't suffer fools gladly, or at all really.  She introduced me to my current guild.  And pretty much, they all are better players than I am.  I sometimes feel like the nerd with the taped glasses thrilled to keep score for the high school baseball team.

Look, I'm not a bad player.  I pay attention, know whats going on in game, and can follow directions.  Since I activate all my powers via mouse, that really limits my game; I really can't assume leadership positions, because if I am typing, I'm not clicking buttons.  I also don't give a sh!t about super optimizing builds.  It's really not hard to get an adequately good build in CoH, and it just doesn't interest me to squeeze that final 10% that I miss.  Except you kind of notice it when I run with my new friends.

So to sign off, thanks to these global handles for making my CoH experience lots of fun.

Meridian
CyberMurph
Sango Sumeragi
Great Beyond
Liz
Mermoine
Vyze Krak
Nive
Rangle M. Down
disposablHero
Bionic Flea
Dirty Larry
UberGuy
Kilspyke
adhna
BlkFaclon
Illenia
Nakoa
Split Light
Silent Twilight
M o
Soliton Wave
Staxxy

Hope to see you all for City of Heroes 2