I still remember going to a Lan in a friend's basement and showing off City to a friend siting next to me. He complained about how everything had loading times, which then he promptly booted up WoW to show me it. It looked boring. People just standing around in town. No one really doing anything.
Personally? I LOVED instances. It made group battles more intimate, it made pulling all the more important to ensure you didn't pull another group sitting nearby around the corner. I'm tired of open worlds.I liked my war walls and office spaces, thank you very much.
To top it all off there was a form of a random mission generator. Sure eventually you would get all the variations and stories but even towards the end there was so much content. I still remember running into Statesman for the first time while playing City of Villains and having my jaw drop because we couldn't handle him during a bank robbery, despite throwing everything else around like rag dolls. And while I didn't succeed, I still remember being the last one standing (as much as I love brooting, I never really grasped tanking to keep others alive till later, pretty much after City went F2P) That same brute ( named Angry Zombie back on Pinnacle) was my first 50, as I really wanted to have access to the epic archetypes. Only to have them open it up to people level 20+ about a month later *facepalm*
Later ( or earlier, can't remember) I created Skyway Defender. He was a Scrapper I created after shields came out so I went with what felt natural to me. Broadsword. The crack of headsplitter critting over the skulls of my foes, the classic ( in my opinion) look of a knight with wings. He went on to be my Blueside 50. He was on Freedom but later moved to Virtue for dumb reasons of me wanting to find a group to RP with but failing miserably. Angry had also moved to Virtue, but due to being a slightly dusty character without the inherit fitness pool he didn't quite survive the respecs like Skyway did.
And my last. Possibly my favorite character next to my brute. My Katana, Super reflexes Scrapper, Yoma Witch (Virtue). The one character I kind of feared would be moderated as well, since I based the character upon the anime Claymore I saw on Netflix. Thing was, the character she was based upon used weaponry like what was in Titan Weapons. But I couldn't wait for Titan weapons to be released, since it was still on the Test server for what felt like forever. I just remember being so frustrated with leveling this character but somehow I did it. By the time I hit mid 30s I found my survivability had greatly improved. By 40s+ I found I could outlive group wipes, just enough to bring everyone else back. And then incarnates released. And this is when I really dug into ( or tried to, I never could really balance end consumption so well) builds. It's also when I found Werner from the forums posts about his Katana/SR Scrapper taking on Nemesis. I was truly inspired.( Ididn't even know about *softcapping defense * until then) I loved the game before but the concept of taking on a SV head to head enthralled me. So much so I became obsessed to try out killing pylons in RWZ solo,and with my master dream of being able to solo a Imperious TF. While I never did Solo an ITF I remember hearing about certain Warshades pulling it off.
Dechs Kaison and TwoHeaded Boy. While I never really talked to either of them, I always enjoyed their Kheldian adventures being conveyed over the forums. It's because of Dechs I invested myself into learning macros, and creating my first Warshade. I still remember saying *meh* when I first played one and teamed with one, but when you ran into someone who could stance dance into capping their resistances and damage, you knew you were watching a skilled player.
I miss this game, and quite honestly I don't think anything can capture what made the game what it is to me. I'll certainly give the Plan:Z and Heroes and Villains a go, but I think for me an era has ended. I'm ready for something. I don't know what, and I extremely hope one of these options will fulfill this coming era for me. Even if City came back. Just the fact that it could be gone again.
And with this, like any cowardly Hero or Villain, I take the elevator away to escape the overpull. And remember to take the back elevators when you come back up to avoid the second wipe.
