Did you play much towards the end?

[doc7924]

I have to be honest, even though I love this game to death, the last month or two I had a really hard time logging in and enjoying myself.

I had quite a few 50's - maybe 11 or 12. Not as much as other people but was good enough for me. And I had about 30 others all between lvls 10 - 47.

Every time I logged on I felt - what was the point. Luckily I had just renewed my VIP status the month before so at least until the end I was able to have Incarnates and all the other perks.

But I couldn't get into leveling my non-50 toons because I felt it was a waste of time when in a month or two it would be pointless. Same for doing Incarnate trials and all that on my 50's. What would be the point of spending time on those when whatever I get will be gone in a few weeks?

So I just spent time logging in toons, chatting with people about what was going on, taking screenshots, helped out a few missions just to do stuff but my heart wasn't really in it.

It actually quite depressed everytime I would log in knowing that it was al coming to an end.

It became much more then just a game - it was like a second home and it was a great 8 years of fun and meeting great (and no so great) people.

[Ad_Astra]

I actually played more towards the end because the new powersets were exciting and I wanted to make sure I got through levelling alts through them.

It took me 2 1/2 years to get my first 50. In the last three months, I got 2 -3 more 50s and severl alts to the 40s.

And of course, I spent countless hours taking screen shots of all 60+ alts and 6 SG bases.

[OzonePrime]

As much as possible.
The last 12 hours of the game took screen shots. The last ten of those spent at Atlas Park, on Guardian server. Have pix of everyone at Atlas on our last day!

/em holdtorch

[Triplash]

I didn't, really. For much the same reason as yourself.

If I could have devoted all day every day like I could once? You bet I would've. But I don't get a lot of free time anymore. In the days I'm too busy for gaming, and in the evenings I'm too tired to concentrate. So I just couldn't bring myself to log in very often, knowing that the short time I had left wouldn't even count; that before I knew it this character would be gone and it wouldn't matter that I had made that last push to go from 47 to 50, or made one more cool costume that would disappear with the rest. And I didn't want to start anything new either, just to lose it once I really began to enjoy it. I think dulling the pain by keeping my distance was what got me through as well as I did, actually. I had already lost the City; I certainly didn't need to feel it more keenly.

For a while there I regretted not at least taking more screenshots and demorecords. But now I think, no, I wouldn't go back and play more. Because at least this way, every moment in that city was a treasure, and I don't have a single memory of actual playing time that's associated with any kind of somber death-watch feeling. Every level I ever dinged, every Sapper I ever cursed, every Hellion I ever putted onto that little statue in the water in Prometheus Park... they're all 100% positive memories. And I wouldn't trade that in to get a few more screenshots. Not in a million years.

(Not that any of that will stop me from fighting to get it back, mind you. )

[Lothic]

I was in pretty much in a "non-serious" mode for the last couple of months of the game.  I logged in to run missions with friends and/or chat but I didn't spend much time leveling up any characters.  With the end date set I had no real motivation to start anything new.  I had been playing the game fairly regularly for 8+ years with a core collection of level 50 characters so I was honestly already semi-finished creating new alts anyway.

Regardless of all that I'm glad NcSoft gave us 3 more months to prepare for the end of the game.  They could have just as easily pulled the plug on everything in August...

[Brightfires]

Even with Project Screenshot in full swing, I actually did play quite a bit.

FCM and I had a couple of characters we still wanted to get to 50, I needed to complete Nemissary's Incarnate toys to feel like I had any sort of proper closure with the grumpy old death mage (He just had to have two tier 4s in each slot, the jerk. Getting the last couple of purple bits before the shutdown was a bit of a stretch goal... but damned if we didn't just barely manage it.  We got the last one he needed on Liberty's very last Underground run. ), FCM needed demo recordings of a lot of maps and NPCs and such, and there were a number of missions, TF and iTrials that I wanted to FRAPs.

[Minotaur]

I played a lot, including getting a toon from 1-50+2 fully pimped out in the last 4 days. Sentinel+ ing well upwards of 100 toons took a bit of my time though.

[TerminalVelocity]

None at all. I logged on that night of the announcment to talk to friends and gather contact info, and didn't play again. I sort of regret it now, but with my alt-itis it's not like I could've accomplished anything in the time.

[JaguarX]

i didnt play at all towards the end. I logged in about twice after the announcement but neither times were to play anything. One time was just to walk through the streets. The second time was to get a screenshot to recreate a toon in the game I was currently playing.

For those two short times I noticed that Virtue and Freedom was crowded and many of the other servers were dead. I figured there was people on there but on the "empty" servers they was just keeping to their usual group of friends and thus an outsider like me wouldnt even notice anyone there although I had that feeling they are there. Not to mention seemed like everyone and their momma, make it look like they was as populateed as virtue on the chat channels all ofa sudden come from the low pop servers. I was thinking, "hmmm where were you hiding all those years?" But in virtue and freedom, people were out in force for the final hours it seemed.

[eabrace]

I think, in my case, it was more a matter of "Did you log out at all towards the end?"  The last two weeks of the game were the first two weeks of me being laid off of work, so I finally had the ability to spend some quality time with the game for the first time in a long time, and I was about to lose it for good.  I played the hell out of the game for those two weeks and clocked quite a few hours running down missing mission text and NPC dialogue for the wiki.

[Heroette]

I played as much as I could before the end but it was only for "fun".  I did things that made me happy.  I didn't really do any hami raids or anything like that.  I did do one Hami near the end so I could record it.  But at the end, I wanted to enjoy my time.

[Cinnder]

I dropped every other game and played as much as I could till the lights went out.

At first, my goal was to play a demon MM and a water blaster from 1-50, but as the end got closer I found I wanted to spend some time with other old favourites, so I never got the 2 new characters past 40, but it was a good run.

Oh and I also spent time get demorecord data of every redside zone for Evangel's project because he hated redside. :-)

[InOnePiece]

I played it as much, maybe a bit more, than I did before, though alot of the people I normally played with disappeared. Some stayed on, though, and we had fun until the bitter end.

What I did play ALOT more was the Beta server.

[wei yau]

Aside from my regularly scheduled SG/VG nights, I didn't spend much time playing.  I spent a helluva lot of time taking screenies of all my alts across every single server.  I, stupidly, did not know anything about Demos at the time.  Had I known then, what I know now...I would have spent more time playing, especially on the last day.

Thanks to the wonderful tools developed by this community, I am now able to recreate any and all of my characters in demofiles now, pretty much rendering my in-game screenshots obsolete.

[doc7924]

Aside from my regularly scheduled SG/VG nights, I didn't spend much time playing.  I spent a helluva lot of time taking screenies of all my alts across every single server.  I, stupidly, did not know anything about Demos at the time.  Had I known then, what I know now...I would have spent more time playing, especially on the last day.

Thanks to the wonderful tools developed by this community, I am now able to recreate any and all of my characters in demofiles now, pretty much rendering my in-game screenshots obsolete.

I also found out about demos too late, otherwise I would have done a lot more than just screenshots.

But with the Icon up and running, and the demoediting tips I get here I am able to at least recreate the heroes I never saved costumes for and can at least see them in the city again, thru demo playback.

Better then nothing.

[tomborocks1]

I teamed with my daughter - at the time 9 years old, now a vastly more mature 10 year old - on a few of our characters. Icicle Lass and Icicle Lad. Sevilla and Venemous Burn. Went on my main, Broadback, to say goodbye to a few folks.

We eventually spent a lot of time taking screens of our toons and saving them on our PCs. Since the game ended around 12 PST and I'm on EST, I just simply couldn't stay up anymore. Still kicking myself for that, but she wasn't going to go to bed until I did, so ...

I still look at my screens. She can't do it without getting upset. She doesn't even like it if I ever bring it up. I hope I can tell her some day in the near future that it's coming back. I feel I owe her that since I was the one who made her cry with the news of its closing.

[Ashen Fury]

I had taken a long hiatus til about 2 months before the shutdown was announced, and had been playing a little here and there. Once the shutdown was actually announced, I played RABIDLY, getting in as much time as I possibly could, as during my hiatus, my main of 8 years had somehow been lost, and I needed to relevel and try and max her out before I never had the chance to, again. I was literally on for the entire final 24 hours, running as much as I could with people I hadnt seen in years, and reminiscing with everyone.

[Menrva Channel]

I played maybe for about a week of time a month until November. When they made the announcement in August, I just... I felt like someone had taken the wind out of me. I couldn't concentrate and a lot of my friends couldn't find the will to play and were in mourning already. I forced myself to log in, but had a very busy schedule. I probably could have made more time... but it was hard. Then November came and I realized how little time there was left--so I tried to play as much as I could. That last week, despite a crucial moment in my job, I played until I couldn't. I logged more hours that week than probably the last three months it had. That last week it was amazing. I saw so many people come back to make a final stand. It was quite beautiful. Anything that I slacked on at work I eventually made up. I wouldn't trade my time in the City for anything.

[SerialBeggar]

I played somewhat more than usual.  Note that "usual" is 2-4 hours on a week night and almost all day on weekends,  , but a significant chunk of that time was just hanging out lurking the chat channels for something interesting to happen.  When the announcement was made, the first thing I did was buy Water Blast + Dark Manip and Dark Control + Nature Affinity.  I had been putting them off, but there was no reason to hang on to the $50 worth of Points I had recently purchased.  With 2 new characters, I joined any group that was recruiting.  I'm disappointed that didn't complete TF Commander on either (kept missing the recruitings for Synapse!), but I did run several of the Shard TFs including Dr Q at least once each with both characters.  I think I made Tier-2 Incarnate levels on both.

I ran both characters on Virtue because I figured its population would hold up best.  I was surprised Freedom's population dropped so quickly.  The populations on the Live servers were also diminished because a lot of people went to the Test server to play the final new powersets.  I believe another reason the Live servers felt so dead (to me) was because of the new LFG channels.  With it, most people fell out of using the cross server Global channels so I was oblivious to what was happening elsewhere.  The last few months didn't seem as dynamic without recruiting shout-outs and then the rush to swap servers join a TF run.

[Blondeshell]

I logged more time in the last five weeks of the game than I had in the previous six months, with most of it spent on the test server going through contacts for the wiki. I didn't actually team much during that time (documenting tends to go quite slowly), but I did see a lot of people who hadn't been around much previous to that.