And the mask comes off.

[hurple]

If you had less virtue than you had infinity that's damned impressive.

Well, so far I have infinity - 47 years... so, yeah, I have less virtue than that.

[Arcana]

When I started, I picked Triumph (Yep, another Triumphateer?  Triumphverate?  Triumphian?), I picked it, not because it was the top of the list...

I picked it because I could remember it:  Triumph, for the Insult Dog Comic.

One of the weird little pieces of inside ball was the fact that sometimes in public discussion people on Triumph would claim that Triumph was known as the "insult comic server" and then giggle to themselves, because that was emphatically *not* what the server was generally known as on the actual server (pantsless beat that by about thirty to one, because of an inside joke that probably no one even remembers).  We also sometimes called the server the "friendly" server, and then as now "friendly" was always in quotes.  We were in fact generally very friendly to newcomers, but often like the friend you throw in the back seat by themselves on long car rides.

Everyone is probably biased towards their own server(s), but I think I lucked out on Triumph for one simple reason: Triumph had a higher proportion of veteran players that actually wanted to be there.  Triumph was a lower population server although higher than Liberty and Protector, say, but still significantly lower than Infinity and Guardian, much less Freedom and Virtue.  Its interesting to note that when Hamidon strategies were being formulated, while Freedom was generally in the lead to take down level 50 Hamidon, Champion and Triumph were always close behind.  The lower population servers seemed to attract more relaxed players, and Triumph seemed to have a higher density of veteran skilled but lax players.  That meant all other things being equal, Triumph was more tolerant of, shall we say, unoptimized gameplay.  If you decided to start running ahead of the team and Nova blasting the next spawn, you were less likely to be admonished and more likely to start a tier 9 contest among the blasters.  As long as you didn't actually hurt the team or kill anyone, all was fair.  And in fact if you were on a team that actually knew you on at least some level, then even killing yourself or others was acceptable if it was funny enough.

Which is not to say that every server didn't have such people.  But I think its fair to say if you were on a random Pug on Freedom and decided to do something goofy, you were statistically more likely to draw ire than on Triumph.

I just wish they'd stay away from those goddamn bombs...

[Remaugen]

It's interesting that everyone say's "server X was at the top of my list".

It must have been a randomly sorted thing, I played on mainly Champion, 'cause it was at the top of my list. . .

[Arcana]

It's interesting that everyone say's "server X was at the top of my list".

It must have been a randomly sorted thing, I played on mainly Champion, 'cause it was at the top of my list. . .

My understanding is that the list was supposed to be sorted in ascending order of load, so the least loaded servers ended up on top.  That way, new players would tend to be roughly load balanced into the server pool (once you logged in for the first time, that server would be at the top by default).  Triumph was at the top for a lot of people because it was added after go-live.  Thus, after the initial burst of players signed up, Triumph was always among the most lightly loaded.  Conversely, Freedom was the most heavily loaded because of a quirk of circumstance: beta/head start players got to reserve character logins on the server that eventually became Freedom, so it had a head start on becoming the most heavily loaded server.  After that, self-selection kicked in.  Most players were distributed roughly randomly, preferentially to less lightly loaded servers.  But for those players paying attention, those who wanted a more active server would tend to self-select themselves for Freedom, which was the most active server.  The most active server became increasingly more active.  Those who wanted less heavily loaded servers tended to shift to logging into places like Champion or Pinnacle.

I don't actually know how Virtue became the "role playing server" although I do know it took some time for that to develop.  I've always suspected that Virtue became the de facto RP server by happening to be a heavily populated server that was not Freedom and was time shifted from Freedom (Virtue was a West Coast server at the beginning of time).  When the RPers were looking for a home base, they wanted a high pop server, but wanted to escape Freedom, and Virtue was the logical choice.  That's always been my theory, but as I was not an active member of the RP community back then, I don't know the internals of how the community went in that direction.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Yeah...I...So don't remember why I picked Victory. -shrugs-
Whatever random reason 13 y/o me had... Likely 'Victory sounds cool.'

[saipaman]

I first picked 'Protector' because that's what I saw heroes as doing ... protecting people.

[Battlechimp]

*snip*
I don't actually know how Virtue became the "role playing server" although I do know it took some time for that to develop.  I've always suspected that Virtue became the de facto RP server by happening to be a heavily populated server that was not Freedom and was time shifted from Freedom (Virtue was a West Coast server at the beginning of time).  When the RPers were looking for a home base, they wanted a high pop server, but wanted to escape Freedom, and Virtue was the logical choice.  That's always been my theory, but as I was not an active member of the RP community back then, I don't know the internals of how the community went in that direction.

Virtue becoming the unofficial RP server was something that was discussed and debated on the beta board before the three day head start.  I remember there being arguments over people picking Virtue or Guardian. 

Couple of the reasons that kept being thrown out there that I do remember is that with a name like Virtue, it wasn't as dynamic of a name like Freedom or Champion or such, so it would draw less, "I'll go there because it sounds bad ass" type players.   And also when thing first started, before  things went live, servers were organized alphabetically, so some people argued that Virtue would be at the bottom and might draw less players.... that didn't last long

[Aggelakis]

I started on Champion because my then-boyfriend-now-very-ex was on it. I moved to Justice because I found friends there. Eventually I graduated to "every server" because my altitis cannot be contained.

I have alts in games where you can eventually be everything (like Final Fantasy or Secret World)!! My altitis knows no limits!

[Thunder Glove]

I started on Protector... but I don't remember why.

I also had a couple of characters on Triumph (including one of my level 50s, an Energy/Energy Brute modeled after a villainous Ms. Marvel).  If you ever did an Incarnate trial with a character named Ms. Stungun... hi again.

Most of my mains were on Protector, though.

[Solitaire]

I chose Defiant, had the chose of either Defiant or Union considering I couldn't speak/write in German or French  Only reason I chose Defiant was due to the fact I'd just finished watching an episode of DS9 with the USS Defiant in it...

[Auroxis]

I chose Freedom because it had the highest server load hence was likely the most populated server in my TZ. I didn't want to spend a lot of time looking for teams/teammates.

Now, there's an issue with choosing the "biggest server" which is the people within it. Oftentimes, you get more recluse people who don't care for a tight-knit society as much as they care about just playing the game. At the time I felt closer to that mentality as a player due to my social awkwardness, so Freedom felt right at home.

Later on I went into Virtue for social interaction, and found a good balance in both servers depending on my mental state. If I just wanted to jump in and play with minimal social interaction I logged onto my Freedom characters, and if I wanted a more social atmosphere I logged onto my Virtue characters.

[HEATSTROKE]

 I chose Justice.. Justice League.. Hall of Justice.. played there for years... probably a good 5-6... Then moved to Virtue and pretty much played there till close..

[Surelle]

My family, all ten of us who played CoX,    picked Virtue together.

In retrospect, we made the right choice.

We did have holiday overflow characters on Pinnacle, though.  In the final years when the character slot availability per server improved, I finally moved my 46 main there, Get Psyched (Illusion/Kin troller), to Virtue.  I have to admit that felt weird.  There was a certain serenity to Pinnacle that I missed in the end.  Virtue was always such a clusterfluff, lol.

[Ironwolf]

Arcana said: Which is not to say that every server didn't have such people.  But I think its fair to say if you were on a random Pug on Freedom and decided to do something goofy, you were statistically more likely to draw ire than on Triumph.


I personally think if you did something goofy on Freedom - most players there wouldn't even notice. I played Champion, Virtue and Freedom the most although had alts on every server. Freedom was Unique, in the Unique Dragon sense. I found it to be a blend of fun, pain and downright embarrassment - sort of like an Ashley Madison data dump.

[hurple]

I started on Champion because my then-boyfriend-now-very-ex was on it. I moved to Justice because I found friends there. Eventually I graduated to "every server" because my altitis cannot be contained.

I have alts in games where you can eventually be everything (like Final Fantasy or Secret World)!! My altitis knows no limits!

I had alts that were exact duplicates of another toon on the same server, but with different names and costumes because... because... altitis.

[Surelle]

I had alts that were exact duplicates of another toon on the same server, but with different names and costumes because... because... altitis.

My parents probably had about 30 energy blasters each, I kid you not.

They may have been elderly, but man, when they told you that you were not doing something right when you were playing your energy blaster, you'd better listen to their advice.   

[hurple]

I had alts that were exact duplicates of another toon on the same server, but with different names and costumes because... because... altitis.

Actually, what I liked, and this is a mark of a great RPG-experience is that even if I had two toons with the exact same powersets, their individual backstory, costumes and interactions with Paragon City's other residents (both NPC and character controlled) turned each and every one into a fully-realized "person" all their own.  Some were goofy, some all business, some vengeful, others protective...  Aw, man, here I go... I really really miss some of those guys. 

Even re-making them, they won't be the same "person" they were before...

[Optimus Dex]

Actually, what I liked, and this is a mark of a great RPG-experience is that even if I had two toons with the exact same powersets, their individual backstory, costumes and interactions with Paragon City's other residents (both NPC and character controlled) turned each and every one into a fully-realized "person" all their own.  Some were goofy, some all business, some vengeful, others protective...  Aw, man, here I go... I really really miss some of those guys. 

Even re-making them, they won't be the same "person" they were before...

My mins were on Triumph and then Freedom but I used Pinnacle and Protector for variations on a theme heroes. And I found even slight variations in history , costumes and powers made them different to me.. Altisis for the win.

[MegaWatt]

i dont remember where i started i just remember that i ended up on virtue.

[Aggelakis]

I had alts that were exact duplicates of another toon on the same server, but with different names and costumes because... because... altitis.

I had Aggelakis, Aggelakis II, and Aggelakis III on Justice. Agge is an emp/archery, 2 is emp/dark, and 3 is dark/archery. I had three of them because my Agge concept was bigger than City could encompass. lol