How and why did you buy the game?

[doc7924]

I bought my boxed cd copy in CompUSA sometime in May 2004.

I never played any MMO up to this because I always read bad things happening to new players in MMO
s and assumed they all were PvP.

So the first thing that attracted me to the game was no PVP. (At the time)

I had seen ads in comics and I think a TV commercial (not sure though) and I was just looking around in the store and saw the box and thought:

"Oh here's that game I keep seeing ads for." I read the box - saw they had a free trial. I really didn't realize that there would be a monthly fee, otherwise I may not have bought it. I would not have liked to spend $50 on a game and if I didn't like it, I would be stuck with it and couldn't play it unless I paid.

Luckily I loved it and quickly signed up.

I then got the pre-order for COV beta and I NEVER EVER have preordered a game in my life until this.

After 8 years it was no longer a game but a second home I could away go to and forget all my troubles and just have fun and chit chat with people from across  the country an even across the globe.

[Mysterious J]

I got a box a month or so after it launched, because my RL friends @Dr. Henry and @Malabranca were playing and thought I would like it for the superhero theme even though I had no interest in MMOs.

[SARobb]

I got off work a hour early one Friday, not wanting to head directly home, I swung by a local mall and wandered into the Game Stop. As I was looking at the games, the only CoH/V box left in the store caught my attention.  I can honestly say that single purchase was some of the best money I have ever spent.

[CheerGunbunny]

When I first moved to TX in July 04, friends I was staying with played..I lurked and looked over the shoulder, and once I found a job, I snagged a copy from Gamestop in late september    And yeah, the no PVP was a MAJOR plus to me.

[goodtime]

July 9th, 2004.  I first saw it in Best Buy, and the Penny Arcade strips about it.  Then two friends bought it and talked it up, so I went and got it.   Then a bunch of other friends bought it.  I think there that first 6 months I knew 12 people in real life who were playing.  Then all but me and Arc-Mage unsubbed and moved on.  And we'd take breaks for a couple months.   And come back.   And meet new people who I've never seen their face or heard their voice.

Greatest game ever. 

[Dollhouse]

Like jamused, I bought CoH in the box at a retail store -don't recall which - because some good friends decided to jump in. This was about two weeks after launch.  Unlike jamused, I had little to no interest in the comic superhero genre (still don't really...it never was the reason I loved CoH), and wasn't an MMO player at the time. I was almost exclusively about shooters.

CoH changed everything for me, gaming-wise. I now play only MMOs, mostly MMORPGs, but also Defiance, which is an MMOTPS. Only one or two MMORPGs I've tried come anywhere near CoH in overall terms, although some do certain things better.

[Heroette]

I pre-ordered a copy for my son (who was 12 at the time) about a month before it came out.  He had heard about it but I am not sure where.  We got two copies after I realized how fun it was.  But as he grew older, he quit and I never did stop playing.  The sad thing for me was that about a month before the announcement, he and his friends (who are now in college) decided that they were going to start playing again.  They were all on when the game shut down at midnight on Nov. 30th.

[Triplash]

I used to play Neverwinter Nights a lot, and there were some really great adventure modules made by this player called Twoflower. I looked up his website to see what else he did, and his blog kept talking about this superhero game... sounded great, but we only had dial-up internet at the time so online games weren't an option. A couple years later though, once we could afford to upgrade to high speed, my brother talked me into trying out WoW... that stank, but I had been opened up to trying MMOs. After a couple others, I finally remembered that superhero game Twoflower's blog had mentioned, and I gave the two-week trial a shot.

Two days in, I bought the download version of the Good Vs Evil edition and never looked back.

[Ezuka]

I was in Big Lots with my mother, and I saw a neat looking box for $7.95 with the City of Heroes logo on it. I had no idea what the game was like, and I wasn't even a huge superhero fan, but I bought the game because I had just gotten a new computer. It was the single greatest purchase I've ever made. When I buy games now, I look at reviews, and I make sure the game is something I'd be into, but for some reason, it's always the games that I pick up on a whim that I enjoy the most.

[Ironwolf]

I had been playing several FPS games Half Life TFC and Soldier of Fortune 2. I was getting a bit bored and was going through Best Buy looking for games. I saw this new MMO City of Heroes and since I grew up reading comics I bought it.

I remember going home and throwing it in loading up the patches and logging into Atlas Pack - the music hit me and since it was the first day of live play after Beta the place was swarming with people at all levels I rolled a fire/fire blaster, a broadsword/SR scrapper and a fire/fire tank on the first day. I had the first Fire/Fire blaster to hit 40 on Champion!

[srmalloy]

When I first moved to TX in July 04, friends I was staying with played..I lurked and looked over the shoulder, and once I found a job, I snagged a copy from Gamestop in late september    And yeah, the no PVP was a MAJOR plus to me.

A co-worker had gotten into the open beta toward the end of it, and recommended the game to me when it went live; I bought my copy on May 8, 2004, and like you, the game not having PvP made it much more attractive.

[Morvani]

My husband and I had just moved into our new home in March 2004, but unfortunately, our old computer didn't make the trip unscathed, and was DOA in April 2004. We ended up purchasing a new computer, and as we looked at the website, considered what kind of software could join the ride. We'd never played MMOs before, but two looked interesting: City of Heroes, and Final Fantasy XI.

We opened and loaded CoH first.

I think Final Fantasy XI might still be in its shrink wrap.

[doc7924]

Also just to add.

I had recently gotten a new PC at the time and bought Freedom Force - which I enjoyed a lot. I thought COH was the same type of game, as I said I honestly didn't realize I had to pay every month to play lol.

And to tell the truth that $14.95 a month SAVED me a ton of money since I didn't buy any new video games or PC games for about 5 years since I played COH almost every day for 4 or 5 hours at a time.

[JaguarX]

I found the game in the store back around late Dec. 2004. At first I picked up the box, looked at it, read that it required internet connection and thought "Well dang, an MMO." At the time I wasn't too keen on MMOs as I like to play for personal enjoyment and sometimes having to deal with people and team is a hassle. So I put it back on the shelf.

March 2005, in the same store see the same game. Still a bit hesitant but I figure what the hell, might as well give it a try, what do I have to lose?  Take it home install it, play it for a few days then put it down. Thought at that point that was the end of that. Havent said anything much to anyone besides hi at the time, and already seen a lot of "look my nose down at the newbies" attitude. I figured I wasn't cut out of MMOs and hats off to people who deal with that and someone how find fun and team  although I liked the game immediately. Ironically one friend saw the game and asked about it. I said it was good game but it's an MMO. She didn't sound pleased at first.
Sept. 2005- Wait a sec. I thought. Am I going to let a few snobs ruin my fun? Are they going to rule what I can and cannot play because they want to be full of themselves? Hell no! So I reactivated my account, shut off the chat channels and did the missions that I could. Eventually started to get a few tells from some people that seemed pretty friendly added them to my friend list, teamed with them, that led to more people on the friend list and so on. Cool stuff. And thus began with me telling my friends about the game.

By 2006, 8 joined including the aforementioned friend who finally joined about Jan. 2006, formed an SG with the other friends I made and it was gravy. By the end of the year, all but one left. The original 7 that I got into the game simply said they didn't like COX, a few moved on to WoW and been there ever since and I visit them from time to time. So the SG went from nearly full to totally grayed out list except me and the one back in 2005 that wasn't sold on the idea at first.

By 2007- Formed loose group of friends and opened up to more random teaming and PuG.

By end of 2009- started to notice it was harder and harder to find a team to do some of the  rarer ran TFs/SFs as the availability and the time that finding others that was willing never quite matched up. Most seemed focused on farming AE and other TFs as time went one. Around this time started bouncing around to different servers to see and try my luck, no luck. And by this time the second group of in game friends moved on, two had legal troubles that didn't seem to go well as they never returned.

2011- Left the game for more solo oriented game. Already doen the story arcs to death and not being able to form or join team due to seemingly very bad luck with timing of other's interest and or lack of interest in other kind of blows. Probably be the last time I play a team oriented game. The last friend stayed until the lights went out though.

Sometimes I ask why did I play in the first place knowing my style of fun is usually just playing the game, enjoying the story and doing the content that is available and having to deal with other's definition of fun, schedule or interest at the time. Not sure. COX was a great game and I suppose that what kept me around for as long as I did. Glad I tried it glad I played it and glad I didn't go with first instinct of not purchasing it and leaving it alone. Out of the dozens of games over the years I tried, that is the only one I look back on the times I had in often. If they came out with a solo version of COX I would be on that in a heart beat with no hesitation. Even if a game that is just as team oriented or even more so for COX came out, I would still support it, maybe not play it, but support it because great games like that should live on forever in one way or another.

[doc7924]

With the work Codewalker is doing we are getting close to some sort of 'solo' COH.

I mean I thought I would never be logging into to Atlas or any other zone ever again and yet I can. Even with all the limitations its still boggling to me that we can do that.

[Aggelakis]

I was living in Toronto at the time with my ex. He got City of Villains for Christmas 2005 and I made a character on his account. Less than a month later, I got CoH for the account. Within a few months, he had a level 50 character and gave up on the game because he had 'beaten' it. So I took over the account. In the meantime I had opened an account of my own, so now I had two accounts. My account lapsed repeatedly because I only had a couple characters on it I cared about, so I would only renew it when I wanted to play those characters. I kept the main account going.

[Angel Phoenix77]

i got my copy of city of with a game card if I remember 2005, however I was talked into playing star wars galaxies. when the nge hit the live servers, I uploaded city of heroes and before I started playing I did some searches about which server had the most people on it. I made my 1st character on freedom named phoenixgirl. :D.
I faceplanted time and time again, until I ran into a group of people who became my friends and taught my how to play blasters. in time I made the switch to scrappers.

[Absolute]

I am legitimately curious how the lack of PvP attracts people.

Does it stem from a fear that PvE and PvP will be mixed?
Do people worry that people who could be working on PvE are using their time on PvP?
The type of community it may bring?

I've never heard of an addition to a game, which has no effects on the existing game, turn people away. I started the first issue like a lot of other people here, PvP being announced made me stay much longer than I would have originally (up until the end). I'm not the only one either.

I want to hear people's thoughts on this, because I like PvP in games and don't want games not attracting PvErs because PvP exists. We also already know that every project being worked on will include PvP.

Did people quit out-right when PvP was introduced?
Why doesn't anyone feel this way about things like Bases, AE, Ouro or Incarnate?

[damienray]

The box caught my eye at the store, around the end of 2004. Couldn't wait to get home and try. Played just about every day since. For me personally, the lack of any type of PVP was great ! I almost left when I heard they were adding the PVP, but since it was in it's own zone, I stayed and just avoided those zones. Not even badges could drag me there. For those that say PVP is a must in a game, more power to ya. Just make sure it's in it's own area and can be avoided for the PVE only players.

[Cinnder]

I was determined not to play any MMOs because I didn't want other people in "my" games, but the now-sorely-missed Computer Gaming World included a free trial on the CD that came with the magazine, and I was instantly hooked.  Partly because it was such a cool superhero game, but also because (as has been mentioned all over this forum) the players were actually really nice -- adding rather than taking away from the game.  I've tried a lot of MMOs since CoH, but nowhere else have I found the combination of a game that suits me so well and a community that is so supportive.

Maybe this leads into an answer to your question, Sentry: my initial fear of PvP in MMOs was that I could never relax, because some other player might be out to gank me at any time.  Obviously, I have learned since then that good games manage this in various ways, so you always have safe areas.  However, as I have learned about MMOs I have come to dislike PvP for another reason: power set "balancing".  When the devs have a requirement that any new power set must not over- or under-match any other power set out there so that no one is at an advantage in PvP, I think it strait-jackets how creative the devs can be with new power sets.  It seemed to me from complaints on the forums that the CoH devs did not spend a lot of time balancing powers for PvP, and I think that's why there was such an interesting variety of powers out there.  In other MMOs that take PvP more seriously, all the power sets seem kinda dull and vanilla because the spark has been balanced out of them, with every set having pretty much the same powers with only cosmetic variations.  IMO, of course.