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.

[therain93]

In that last 90 days, I probably played about 75 days for several hours at a time.  I went from being a very casual pop-in on the Monday Night Freedom Horde runs to a pretty hardcore player.  It was fun, but exhausting mentally, physically, and emotionally.  I absolutely respect the OP's (and others') decision to cut back on the playing, but I saw it as "the game isn't gone yet, so I'm going to enjoy it".  I'd sure as heck prefer to still be playing though...

[Rotten Luck]

I tried to play.  But always ended up standing in Atlas park with my torch.

[houtex]

I played a ton.  I played every night I could after the announcement.  I made two more 50s, out of 8 total I ever made, during those three months.  I had a complete blast, even to the end.  It was glorious.

[saipaman]

I played like it was my last chance ever.

[JWBullfrog]

Every. Single. Day.
 
I had far too much to do that was on the list of "I'll get around to it."
 
In that time my wife and I got through Night Ward, WWD hero and villain side, pandoras box, revisited some old favorite missions, and managed to lv two of our long time characters to 50 (only took 5 years to do it.)
 
We also took screen shots of anything and everything. Splash screens, scenery, NPC's ect. We wanted to have as much of that world saved as we could manage.
 
There wasn't enough time.

[Optimus Dex]

The annoucemet of closing the game sucked most of the fun out of playing.  I started taking screenshots of characters and places.  A two eek period went by when I just shifted thru 60 some alts looking at them and thinking about costumes and powers. I played more on the beta server. I really enjoyed some of the new powersets and costumes and the revamped Kings Row stuff. The last day I played a lot - I was still playing when the server went down and managed to log onto another to see it go away. I miss the game. I miss my characters. I miss Paragon City.

[SerialBeggar]

I also finally respeced several older characters into Inherent Fitness.  I even used a lot of my long hoarded high-end enhancement drops. Unfortunately, I was still too cheap to buy some of the pieces I was missing, though.

[therain93]

I also finally respeced several older characters into Inherent Fitness.  I even used a lot of my long hoarded high-end enhancement drops. Unfortunately, I was still too cheap to buy some of the pieces I was missing, though.

there was a brief time from about Mid-October to Mid-November where the market became a flipper's dream.  It took some time, but people eventually started dumping pvps and purples for shockingly low prices and, thanks to tons of enhancement converters that had sat long unused, I actually managed to amass about a billion inf (also in part due to a cash injection from Lydia as I was cash poor at that time) while people were still willing to buy the more coveted pieces.  I never really played the market before -- It was very satisfying to check sales every morning for a while there....yet another thing I was glad to do before the end. 

[FlyingCarcass]

I played quite a bit towards the end. Heck, I dinged 50 on a tanker on the last day, after which I logged off for the last time (after completing the ITF I was on, of course). Good times, wish I could play CoH some more.

[AlphaFerret]

I played like crazy.  My primary sg abandoned the game to start up on DCUO.  I played over there for a bit, but felt dirty.  I knocked out 6 or so 50s in the final months.  There were some concepts/power sets that I had to try before the end came.  Like many of us here, I was holding a torch in Atlas Park when the servers went dark...

I can't wait for the comeback:)

Word

[Thunder Glove]

I played it like crazy for the last few months, though I did actually spend a little time in (of all places) Disney's Toontown when it got too much, and I prepared for the end by making a Champions Online account.

I spent more and more time in CoH as it got closer to the end, and I was on near-constantly for the last week, finishing up characters (including getting my first-ever character, an Elec/Elec Blaster I'd neglected for too long, to 50) and playing my favorites.

When the game went down, I was logged into my favorite character, my proudly-villainous Bots/Storm Mastermind, standing in front of Lord Recluse's statue in Grandville.

I miss the game every day.

[Golden Ace]

The annoucemet of closing the game sucked most of the fun out of playing.  I started taking screenshots of characters and places.  A two eek period went by when I just shifted thru 60 some alts looking at them and thinking about costumes and powers. I played more on the beta server. I really enjoyed some of the new powersets and costumes and the revamped Kings Row stuff. The last day I played a lot - I was still playing when the server went down and managed to log onto another to see it go away. I miss the game. I miss my characters. I miss Paragon City.

sounds a lot like what I did.

[Lucretia MacEvil]

Right after the announcement, I thought I might be too depressed to play. 
That didn't happen.  I was determined to enjoy every possible second that I had left in CoX.  Every single second was bittersweet, but I don't regret any of them.  If anything, I played more than ever, a sort-of CoX Sendoff Campaign.  I didn't worry about lvling, I just played the characters that were the absolute-most fun.

I look forward to a CoX Restart Campaign. 

See you there!

[Lady Luck]

I had played sporadically the 2 years previous to the announcement but that summer I was getting back into COH with the new power sets and was really starting to enjoy it again when Black Friday hit. I then played as much as I could. I missed out on a lot of sleep and started feeling a little fried by the end but it was worth it. I ran full teams every night and had a blast. I completed 5 lvl 50s in those 3 months. Some were older toons that I'd said I'd finish "later" and some were newer toons with the new power sets that I just had to get to 50. Since I teamed every night, I helped quite a few others hit lvl 50 as well but my favorite was this player who stopped playing COH several years ago but came back when they heard about it closing. They never got a toon to 50 but on the last day she managed to ding 50 and we then had time to run an ITF with her. I miss teaming and I miss COH every day. 

[Kistulot]

I played a lot near the end.

Being that RP was a huge focus for why I was there it was kinda depressing as the high amount of death cults that sprang up just were meh... but I was on as much as I could be without being a miserable pile of sad.

[Ironwolf]

Near the end I had a thought that had never occurred to me in over 8 years. All of the players who were left and still playing were my friends. They still loved the game enough to continue in the face of certain defeat.

To still stand and spit in the face of certain death is my kind of person.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07-RnI8W4xY

For those struggling to get by without your friends - Johnny Cash can carry a piece of your darkness away for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRmJyIyJbM

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

i played slightly less towards the end, but i still played quite a bit. In the last month there were a lot of in game friends who rarely logged on, so on the lower population servers teaming became less easy to do; on those servers i mostly stuck with characters that soloed well, like my Defenders and Stalkers. Still, on Justice and Virtue it was pretty easy to find teams right up until the end. Even in the last week i was still cranking out new concept alts and trying new powerset combos.

Every so often i still get a flash of annoyance when i come up with a character concept that i could only easily realize in CoH. Like just last night i wanted to create the character Clockwork Dali, who would've been perfect as an illusion/time, but guess what?... 

Now i wish i'd gotten more screenshots of "my parole officer" and "general incompetence" taking on enemies. Especially the NPC dialogues.
 

[Xev]

I played like it was my last chance ever.

This.

I played my brains out so hard that I barely saw the end until it was there with me standing in a daze with a torch in my hand in Atlas.

There was a crap-ton of moaning in the channels on Liberty server, those last months.. So much so that I even closed my chat box more than once. There was a lot of cool stuff, too.

All in all I'd say we handled the end of the world pretty well. Seemed like eotw practice almost for the hardcores as the virtual world we all shared counted down to the end and we all were finding ways to cope. The end was near, we all knew it, and no one could do a thing about it except try and find a way to go out as best as possible. (Or moan..)

The market was mentioned before. I was amazed how active the market was in the last months. I farmed my butt off (and raided and power leveled newbs and jumped in anything challenging or warm-fuzzy that was going on and etc and etc too) and couldn't keep up with the demand. Talk about a farmer's dream come true : ) It obviously wasn't about the profit, for me. It felt more like performing a public service at that point. Giving back in some small way for all the stuff people did for me. I barely raised my prices from normal and only did so because I had stuff I still wanted to buy too and a slight raise in prices wasn't slowing the market down one bit..

[Perfidus]

I played it every day. Every day. Even as my friends grew disillusioned, I kept going. It made me sad to see everyone leave by Sept. 1st. But I wasn't done with the game or the community.

Still aren't.

[srmalloy]

I played almost every day all the way up to shutdown, and was with the group on Guardian that was in the middle of a Rikti Mother Ship raid when the shutdown hit -- a collective decision to go out acting as if the game would go on, and not let the faceless minions of NCSoft turn us away from continuing to defend Paragon City.

[Bubba Crush]

For me...it was mixed. Some nights it was too depressing to be online at all...especially the first few weeks after the announcement. But I joined in...I had a small bucket list for Bubba to finish. I had a couple of alts that made incarnate status...a little disappointed that I could not completed them. I was generous with giving away some of my influence...helping others to enjoy their toons as I enjoyed mine.When I was away...I left at least one toon online bearing a torch in support of my fellow gamers. I was glad to have marched from Atlas to Peregrine with my fellow Guardians . I had to work early...so the final night...I bid my best wishes and went ot bed. Bubba stood in Atlas with his torch held high. When I woke the next morning...my computer was still on...the screen was dark.

[saipaman]

I have 2 terabtyes of video that I took with FRAPS in the final month.  I doubt I'll ever be able to stand to watch it.

[glimmershade]

I played it every day. Every day. Even as my friends grew disillusioned, I kept going. It made me sad to see everyone leave by Sept. 1st. But I wasn't done with the game or the community.

Still aren't.

Me too.

I was on every day, but mainly hung around those friends that didn't abandon the game. I confess to feeling a bit mopey about it sometimes and didn't wind up actually playing the game as much as I maybe should have. I wish that I had taken some time to maybe 50 out one last character, spent some time doing my favorite missions and story arcs, maybe just smell the roses a bit before the lights went out. I wish I had now, but at the time it was just hard to do.

[Chance Jackson]

I got a Plant Control/Ma to 50 on beta.
Played a few of my toons on triumph but without access to my incarnate abilities it just wasn't the same

[ahmpizzedoff]

I got two toons to 50 in the final days, then went on to play all my others right up until they shut everything off.

[MaidMercury]

I never stopped playing. I was a quick subscriber from the first month I tested City of Heroes.
7 years of bliss. 

[Woodsfire]

I tried to play.  But always ended up standing in Atlas park with my torch.

Aye... this was me, too.

[Senkan]

I had been playing on and off since May 2004.  From the moment they announced the game was closed till the end I didn't go on a single mission.  I didn't defeat a single foe.  I was there for Atlas 33.  I had my main online at the end.  I would come on to say hey and that's pretty much it. 

My biggest joy from playing was developing heroes and the thought of making them better for the future.  Since there was no future coming on just put me in a depressive state.

[Tenzhi]

I only logged in to delete all my characters.  I couldn't bring myself to play - it just seemed so meaningless at that point.

[okami]

I mostly just logged into the weekly Saturday group events on Guardian.

No point in grinding out levels and absolutely no point in continuing my latest attempt to do the DA grind.

Stood on the chrononaught badge in Ouro waiting for the lights to go out at the end.

[Golden Ace]

Fell asleep, woke up and it was gone. 

[SeaLily]

Over the years, I lost a lot of interest in CoH.  It was a lot of fun, but too many other good games out there to play, too much schoolwork to play CoH like I used to.  Things were just changing- I'd come back every once in a while, at least once or twice a month for a mission or two, but that was basically all.

When they added Water Blast, I came back in force.  It was the one powerset I'd wanted in the game since launch, and it was PERFECT.  So fun, so powerful, so pretty.  I rerolled my main as a Water Blast/Traps Corruptor, and made a new character who was a Water Blast/Elec Blaster.  Had plans to make a Force Field/Water Blast defender as well, once both of those hit 50.

And then the shutdown announcement hit... I was on the day of the announcement, along with a lot of other people, kind of saying my goodbyes then and there.  I logged in from time to time as the slow shuttering of Paragon Studios lingered, but it wasn't fun anymore.  I was just dreading the shutdown, knowing everything and everyone would be gone.

I didn't really play more than a mission or two until the final day.  I was on it as much as I could be, through the repeated server crashes.  And once Virtue went down for good, I hopped onto Pinnacle and played a character I hadn't touched since the week CoH launched(I moved from Pinnacle in the beta to Virtue once the game launched- but Bluescreen, on Pinnacle, was my lone reserved character name from beta).  Went down as the first character I had made in the game.

So, no.  Towards the end I didn't play much.  Until the last day.

[Aura Controller]

I was on my oldest char of freedom hanging out with someone I just met that day while running a hami raid.
I have a screen shot of when the screen froze and I lost connection for the last time. And then I cried some more.

[Intone]

Played since June 2004, just a few months after launch, almost exclusively on Protector.  Dropped off a little after the closure announcement, but still hung in there playing mostly my mains -- Dragon Rage (katana scrapper) and Eschaton (illusion controller). And of course like so many here, logged on that last day and held my torch high in Atlas Park until the lights went dark. What a wonderful community, what an extraordinary game.