For the old timers in the game: Remember when....

[Cinnder]

And this was one of the aspects of City of Heroes that made it feel so different from other MMOs -- the devs actively worked to remove barriers to the players getting around the zones quickly. As opposed to other MMOs, where you can literally be ten feet away from where you need to go, but it's a ten-minute run to get there, because the world was designed to make it feel larger by making you go from Point A to Point B through Points C and D waaay over there and coming back.

I hate that, and it's used in far too many MMOs.  And sometimes real life.  I work in an old hospital that is a collection of short buildings rather than one big tall one.  The other day I had to go to the Facilities office, a place I had never been to before.  I looked on a map of the grounds and found it is located just two buildings away, on the other side of a recently closed ward.  OK, so I couldn't go through the closed building, but I figured I would just walk around it.  Nope.  Metal fences, brick walls, closed gates, corridors joining other buildings with no external access, even a slope of grass too steep to walk.  And these barriers aren't even protecting anything!  It's not like there is private stuff on the grounds or access to restricted wards.  They are just obstacles for their own sake.  In the end I had to walk all the way to the main building in the centre of the campus and then back an equal distance, the whole path being a really long angle.  And then back the same way.

How I wished I had a travel power.  Even SS!

[Shenku]

I remember when City of Heroes had comic books.

I remember when the comics were free with your game's subscription, and when they changed it later on to be a separate subscription fee.

I also remember SBing and IRing random people in Pocket D to help them earn the ski chalet badges once I realized it was practically a must in order for most people to accomplish. Only had like 2 people ask me to stop because they didn't have the reflexes.

Also, I remember Paragon Dance Party, and how sad I was when access to it was removed... I had a character logged out in there and left before realizing I could never get back in...

[FourSpeed]

My my - That does dredge up a lot of memories 

I too remember from the first week all the Wolver*, Wulver* wannabes, along with countless all-green "hulks".

I also remember:

* When you actually could trade with somebody, the max inf you could trade was 9999.

* When 30 Million on an L50 was rich beyond imagination -- pre Tailor...

* Needing to know the difference between the Yellow Line and the Green Line trams, (and, if I recall from the original beta properly? - having to actually wait until the proper zone scrolled up before clicking the door)?

* When the max attainable level was 40 - not 50.

* Once you *could* reach 50, there were often as many L1's in Peregrine Island as L50's. Unsurprisingly, Broadcast in PI consisted primarily of  "PL me" or "Bridge wanted" chatter.  The "bridge" was the guy who was exactly the right level to max XP between the L50 and L1 (I forget the exact level)

* I got the last five levels on my original I-1 toon from the Herding Wolves portal mission (Shadowhunter? That toon *still* had that mission on him when the doors finally shut). Also, many times, runs of that mission would actually crash/kill the game client due to all the particle effects, depending on which powerset mixes you had.

* The kora fruit mission could be kept indefinitely for medium inspies (My I-1 main still had *that* mission too) 

* When the xp debt cap was huge - the first (disastrous) Hami-Raid for my guy (@L46) literally took him *days* to clear the debt.  Ouchies.

* A few hospital trips due to some L50's mission ambush in AP or KR aggroing on some of my early lowbie characters with predictable, unfortunate results (and wondering, WTH?).

* When you had to unlock different contacts to be able to purchase "non-power 10" DO's and SO's (like end-mod, dmg resist, etc).  It was also important to know (in the mid levels) to sell stuff to the proper contact(s) for the best prices if you wanted to be able to afford your next set of SO's. Oh, and the stores?  They weren't shown on your map -- you had to learn where they were.

* Perma: Hasten, PA, armies of fire imps, multiple phantasms, were all *easily* attained on SO builds, and Ill/Rad Controllers were *the* AV soloists.

* Watching the 5th Column / Council Wars just prior to the patch that phased out the 5th Column for several years.

* Some of the crazy bugs with CoV release where villains would end up in hero zones, or get hero badges, etc. Some really crazy stuff happened when that first got released.

Finally,

Not only do I recall when you could herd mobs, but you could *also* herd  ... citizens.  My first Peacebringer had many amusing hours having a couple dozen grateful citizens following him around AP like the Pied Piper.     The best part of that?  Bringing them all into the Entrance to the Hollows and seeing all the commentary from lowbie heroes as they tried to fight thru the throngs to get into, and out of, the Hollows....  Hilarious.


Cheers,
4

[Taceus Jiwede]

..when you would see people at level 1 standing on the tram in Atlas not moving and dinging every 3 seconds?

I may or may not of been the guy out in Perez Park or IP getting those level 1's xp

..you were stuck with whatever butt ugly costume you made because there was no tailor yet?

  My brother made my costume as ugly as possible because I left the room and told him to finish making my costume. Bad Idea

..as a tank you could herd 100+ mobs on one map and as someone with an AOE attack you could hit 100+ mobs in one shot?

Chimera  and trip mine Baby, made a nice fortune doing that just from 100 dying mobs at once.

..regeneration was actually good? (Before ED when you could 6 slot heals and get something like 220% regeneration rates)

  Dark/Regen scrapper was my favorite combo before the ED.

One of my favorite things I miss was the /b group finds.  I miss going into the old DA and just /b-ing "Level 27 Energy/Device Blaster LF street team"

[SerialBeggar]

* The kora fruit mission could be kept indefinitely for medium inspies (My I-1 main still had *that* mission too) 

The original Kora fruit mission was for the big 3rd tier Insps.  After the ease of farming them was deemed overpowered, it was changed to the medium Insps.  Was that change due to the Market or PvP?  I can't remember.

Speaking of herding Citizens, when COV launched with the original Bank Missions, the panicked bank customers were linked to you.  So no matter how you tried to avoid them, they would constantly swarm around you, getting in your way.  Someone made a video to demonstrate this. 

[Heroette]

Oh, that reminded me in KR, by the train station, the NPC's running up and down that sewer entrance, over and over again.  I like how later when they fixed that they put a plaque there explaining why that happened.  Something to do with the Lost and Ismael.

[Intone]

I remember the first zone-level Rikti raids that lasted all weekend.  The first few, we just thought those were the greatest! So many folks would show up, screen freezes were common, or your frame rate would slow to an absolute crawl.  But we were all pulling together to defeat the threat -- man, that was a blast (ahem, so to speak). 

[AlphaFerret]

I remember playing CoH on dial-up when it first launched.  Lots of patches...lots of impatiently waiting...

[Blondeshell]

Oh, that reminded me in KR, by the train station, the NPC's running up and down that sewer entrance, over and over again.  I like how later when they fixed that they put a plaque there explaining why that happened.  Something to do with the Lost and Ismael.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Intellectual_Badge#Monument_4

[FatherXmas]

I remember playing CoH on dial-up when it first launched.  Lots of patches...lots of impatiently waiting...

Preaching to the choir buddy.  I was still on dial-up at the end.  The exception was the rally and the very end where I leeched off a neighbor's open wi-fi connection so I could be in a crowd of players without fear of being logged off early.

[Golden Ace]

Not only do I recall when you could herd mobs, but you could *also* herd  ... citizens.  My first Peacebringer had many amusing hours having a couple dozen grateful citizens following him around AP like the Pied Piper.     The best part of that?  Bringing them all into the Entrance to the Hollows and seeing all the commentary from lowbie heroes as they tried to fight thru the throngs to get into, and out of, the Hollows....  Hilarious.

used to do that all the time in steel canyon.   ah the little things we did. 

[eabrace]

* When the xp debt cap was huge - the first (disastrous) Hami-Raid for my guy (@L46) literally took him *days* to clear the debt.  Ouchies.

And, of course, you couldn't just let that debt cook off while you were logged out.  There was no Patrol XP to cancel out the debt.  No matter how long you stayed logged out, that debt would still be waiting for you when you got around to logging that character back in.

[Heroette]

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Intellectual_Badge#Monument_4

Thank you Blondeshell.

[Sugoi]

I remember the time my first character (who was level 11 or so at the time) had to go from Atlas Park to Boomtown.  Luckily my character could hover, so  I just hovered to the mid levels of the skyscrapers, running along the ledges and hovering slowly between buildings until I got to the Boomtown entrance.  This was during the first month of the game, and I don't believe the Taxis had been created yet. 

I always felt half the game was knowing the quickest way to get from Point A to Point B, no matter where you were going, and a lot of that was negated when the Tram system was fully linked, as well as the addition of all the instant travel powers that were added late in the game (not that I didn't use em for my team's benefit.) grin.

Or as I always told my teammates:  "You know what the 1st person to get to the mission wins? A LONG wait!"

[goodtime]

I'm too far away for my mentor to help me!

[dwturducken]

After Freedom went live, I set up a keybind on one character to say "I am too far away from my mentor!" After a few minutes of standing in the same spot under Atlas, hitting that key, I had couple of really amused veterans and a whole lot of confused free players.

[DarkCurrent]

"Level 1 Blaster lf ninjaz!"

[Golden Ace]

I'm too far away for my mentor to help me!

lol That was Awesome

[Shenku]

I'm too far away for my mentor to help me!

I remember catching a lot of flack from SG buddies for being the wost mentor possible by running off and aggroing a separate mob from the one the rest of the team was fighting (only half the time was it on accident!) forcing my unfortunate sidekick to follow me and die from the overwhelming odds, or follow the rest of the team and move out of range possibly dying anyways.

My scrapper mentality was to test how long I could last against a full team's worth of +3ish enemies alone(pre-IOs), try to speed up the defeat all mission we were often on, and slaughter enemies as fast as my Claws/SR scrapper could to keep the more dangerous enemies from hitting the group (such as Sappers) if mobs seemed to close together, not to mention any number of other situational circumstances where I felt it necessary. My sidekick was often just forgotten in the process... Eventually my SG buddies learned, and stopped having me SK lowbies...

[MindBlender]

The burning building in Steel.  I was on my lvl 50 stone/stone tank and it blew up.  I checked the combat tab to find it had done 45,000 hp of damage