And the mask comes off.

[Twisted Toon]

My 50's were on Infinity. But, I had characters scattered across all the servers, except for Freedom.

The SG I was in that I liked the most (Bouquet of Roses) was on Champion.

The character concept that I liked the best (Serenity Dark) was on Guardian.

[AlphaFerret]

My primary server was Champion.  However, I did have a lot of redside on Pinnacle, along with 5-8 toons on both Freedom and Virtue.....sometimes you wanted to ensure that you could find a team.
Champion had some real nice groups.  Our small sg, Agents of Chaos, still keeps in touch and plays other games together.  Hopefully all of us Champion server heroes and villains get a chance to meet up in Paragon once again;)

[Blackshear]

Started out in Champion in late 2007, where we had a semi-RP SG.  I rolled a few toons on Triumph, mostly to run with PUGs and test builds before rolling the "real" versions on Champion.

In 2009 the group of people I was playing with largely jumped to CO.  A few of them even bought lifetime memberships, for reasons I will never understand.  I tried CO along with them, but didn't care for it and came galloping back to CoH.  Unfortunately, my SG was gutted and it didn't look like it was going to ever make a comeback.  I decided RP was for me, so I started rolling toons on Virtue, and there I stayed until the game folded.

[TheBeatnik]

My very first character was created on Infinity, but before long I recreated him on Virtue, where he became my signature main. Which led to a sadly appropriate moment on closedown night- as the final minutes approached, I was in Gemini Park (through the magic of Ouroboros) listening to The Cape while taking every chance to spend time with characters I'd known for years. In the last 3 minutes, I got disconnected, couldn't get back onto Virtue, and wound up back on Infinity, on that very first character, flying over a deserted King's Row looking for other players. That's my final memory of the game.

[MegaWatt]

I dont even remember what city i started on - i played shortly after launch and i am ashamed to say quit until CoV came out....then i played on Virtue for a loooong time after that.

[Brightfires]

Liberty was always my "home server", though I also had a few characters that I played pretty often on Virtue and Union... Of the three, I was by far the most comfortable with the quieter community on Liberty.

Union had some interesting people to chat with, but I found myself mostly soloing as far as game-play went when I was there. It was a Euro server and I'm in Seattle, so there were just never many people on when I was. That made it very easy to pretend that Adammas and Niaera had the City to themselves, which had a certain appeal.

Virtue... Well, if I'm being completely honest about it, I didn't care for Virtue at all. I know many of you loved the place, but I found it crowded and a little too goofy. Those times when I tried to team with non-roleplayers, I ended up with total nutballs who were more about doing stupid things "for the LOLs" than actually playing the game. When I teamed with roleplayers, it wasn't much better. They'd stand around chatting in their SG channels or private groups (Even when there were others on the team who weren't in the SG or members of those groups, and so couldn't join in-) for long stretches of time, more or less ignoring anyone else who happened to be there. After the fourth or fifth time in row where I ended up spending half an hour standing around the lobby of an office building doing absolutely nothing but watching other people emote at each other, I sort-of swore off of teaming on Virtue, too. It's not my place to tell anyone who liked the Virtue culture that they were having BadWrongFun, but it wasn't my cup of tea.

[HEATSTROKE]

First Justice.. and then Virtue.. Wife played on Victory and then Freedom

[amrobinson]

Started on Infinity, because it sounded cool.

Moved to Champion later, when I figured out it was actually in my time zone. Did over a third of my gaming there.

Finally moved to Freedom when players were starting to getting scarcer, and I really got into pugging.

Spent most of the time in the last few months hanging out in Dark Astoria and running incarnate missions.



Anyone out there remember Kid Shockwave, my elec/en/elec blaster?

[AlienOne]

Started on Infinity, because it sounded cool.

Moved to Champion later, when I figured out it was actually in my time zone. Did over a third of my gaming there.

Finally moved to Freedom when players were starting to getting scarcer, and I really got into pugging.

Spent most of the time in the last few months hanging out in Dark Astoria and running incarnate missions.



Anyone out there remember Kid Shockwave, my elec/en/elec blaster?

Wow, I thought I was the only one representin' Freedom around here...

Yeah, if doing a PuG at any time of the day was your thing (was certainly mine!), then Freedom was the place to be!

[Ironwolf]

I played on Virtue, Freedom and Exalted occasionally.

I started on Champion but the huge nerf bat of ED saw our 50 person SG drop to 3, then 2 and finally me. So I left for Virtue about a year after ED.

When people discuss the reason for the death of CoH - the ED massacre is among one of the huge reasons. I will agree, switching to IO's was a good idea but to swing the nerf hammer without a solid concrete system ready to take its place was a foolish idea. I know personally of over 40 people who left.

I tried to get some to try it after the IO system was in place and they just said - they like to nerf too much - not coming back. It really was soul destroying at the time and after a month our so - I took a 3 month break myself - still paid just had to get away from the Jack Emmert style of communication.

I have been playing several other games lately and you know what I found missing? The other games have no soul. There is little reward for being heroic. In fact most games it is far more rewarding to kill others, destroy the things they have built and to generally be a complete asshat. I don't engage in the taunting or other nonsense and don't care if the other person does, but it lacks depth. No benefit for being kind or for helping someone else. The games are a shallow reflection of our society.

In CoH you can be - an Angel healing and buffing lower level players without being in their team. You can pull villians away from your teammates, you can complete quests to try and stop evil and to have an outcome based on decisions you made. There is a certain pureness to the game - that nothing else comes close to. In many ways it calls to the positive side of people instead of rewarding the negative.

[duane]

I played on Virtue, Freedom and Exalted occasionally.


In CoH you can be - an Angel healing and buffing lower level players without being in their team. You can pull villians away from your teammates, you can complete quests to try and stop evil and to have an outcome based on decisions you made. There is a certain pureness to the game - that nothing else comes close to. In many ways it calls to the positive side of people instead of rewarding the negative.

unless "you can do something for me."  Give me gold, give me loot, give me heal."  go away.  God forbid you ask a question. Want in the supergroup?  Can you commit to 20 hours a week and pay gold gold gold gold? Go away.

Sadly no thanks.  The element was in coh too, but damn getting 2-8 strangers together for a mission or an afternoon was easy and fun.  Oh I miss coh, the supergroup and the strangers too Today...

I could not make elder scrolls online work for me.

[mrultimate]

I played on Virtue, Freedom and Exalted occasionally.

I started on Champion but the huge nerf bat of ED saw our 50 person SG drop to 3, then 2 and finally me. So I left for Virtue about a year after ED.

When people discuss the reason for the death of CoH - the ED massacre is among one of the huge reasons. I will agree, switching to IO's was a good idea but to swing the nerf hammer without a solid concrete system ready to take its place was a foolish idea. I know personally of over 40 people who left.

I tried to get some to try it after the IO system was in place and they just said - they like to nerf too much - not coming back. It really was soul destroying at the time and after a month our so - I took a 3 month break myself - still paid just had to get away from the Jack Emmert style of communication.

I have been playing several other games lately and you know what I found missing? The other games have no soul. There is little reward for being heroic. In fact most games it is far more rewarding to kill others, destroy the things they have built and to generally be a complete asshat. I don't engage in the taunting or other nonsense and don't care if the other person does, but it lacks depth. No benefit for being kind or for helping someone else. The games are a shallow reflection of our society.

In CoH you can be - an Angel healing and buffing lower level players without being in their team. You can pull villians away from your teammates, you can complete quests to try and stop evil and to have an outcome based on decisions you made. There is a certain pureness to the game - that nothing else comes close to. In many ways it calls to the positive side of people instead of rewarding the negative.

Well said.

[robo40]

Agreed on Emmert communication and ED.  The only time I lapsed play from Beta to shutdown was due to ED and the ridiculous assertion that "game integrity" mattered more than player enjoyment.  Didn't trust them for a while.  But in the end, turned out to far and away be the best online environment I've ever enjoyed.

[ShadowMokadara]

I played on Virtue, Freedom and Exalted occasionally.

I started on Champion but the huge nerf bat of ED saw our 50 person SG drop to 3, then 2 and finally me. So I left for Virtue about a year after ED.

When people discuss the reason for the death of CoH - the ED massacre is among one of the huge reasons. I will agree, switching to IO's was a good idea but to swing the nerf hammer without a solid concrete system ready to take its place was a foolish idea. I know personally of over 40 people who left.

I tried to get some to try it after the IO system was in place and they just said - they like to nerf too much - not coming back. It really was soul destroying at the time and after a month our so - I took a 3 month break myself - still paid just had to get away from the Jack Emmert style of communication.

Feel free to throw things at me, but I believe ED was 100% necessary to move the game forward. IOs are what made builds way more complex and fun. However, I think the problem with ED was as you said, Jack Emmert's terrible communication.

[Burnt Toast]

I started out on Guardian, but moved to Freedom in 2005. I would visit Guardian every now and then, but it was seriously dead every time I went after 2010. RIGHT before the announcement..like a week before ... I logged onto my one Guardian toon...and stood there for nearly 30 mins in Atlas before seeing anyone


I never regretted moving to Freedom... made some great friends... learned a lot about builds..and that's where I learned about base building and marketeering


I absolutely loved ED... it made sense to me. Then when IOs came... it made even more sense. Of all the people I knew on Freedom...none quit because of ED...sure a few griped and threatened to quit, but none actually did. I played with the same core group of people from 2005 to 2010. I did have a friend quit in late 2006 because he didn't want CoV but did want base access etc... He did come back in 2009 though until the game shut down.

[KennonGL]

ED was necessary.  IOs were fantastic.

The problem was that ED should NOT have been pushed out until the IO system was ready.

At the very least, it should have been said that ED was a first step being taken with for a new
system that was coming soon.

But, since they didn't want to "let the cat out of the bag" about the IO system, all the players saw
was a game-wide massive nerf for no apparent reason, and all the messages from the powers that
be was "tough noogies".

[JennSpace]

I started playing as a vilain back when City of Vilains came out but after a while, I stopped ravaging the city because this didn't feel right, nor did it ever feel right, to be honest... Jenn is an heroine in her heart and when I bought City of Heroes, I played on Champion for many years. During the f2p year or so, I switched to Exalted but I spent most of my 4000+ hours on Champion.

[pinballdave]

ED was necessary and it was POORLY implemented. There were other factors that were implemented at the same time, very upsetting changes. Controllers couldn't affect as many foes in a spawn. Tanks couldn't taunt as many foes which really got teammates killed. If that wasn't enough the  duration of these effects was reduced and the recharge times were lengthened.

In the long run, I can go along with making the changes. I still believe that if duration of mezzes of controllers were reduced, they would figure out that a crap ton enemies would soon be all over them. Tanks that could taunt big piles in hazard zones would taunt away, but the risk/reward and defense/resistances versus the extra damage would require teammates to bail them out of situations where that tank's damage wasn't enough to prevail before endurance ran out. I never like that Fire Tanks could taunt all of Crey's Folly and come out unscathed against large numbers.

Duration of effect, with recharge time, and number effected, I always thought 2 out of 3 would be plenty of nerf.

[Ironwolf]

Or they could have made the taunt power affect a greater amount of foes - but reduced your attack power recharge speed.

Now you can take a lot of aggro but are unlikely to win alone. With the help of your TEAM - you will be fine. A good balance if you want to take taunt as an aggro relief.

[skoogmik]

I played on Virtue, Freedom and Exalted occasionally.

I started on Champion but the huge nerf bat of ED saw our 50 person SG drop to 3, then 2 and finally me. So I left for Virtue about a year after ED.

Out of curiosity, which of the Champion Server's SGs were you in?