Why CoH over other Superhero MMOs?

[Eoraptor]

I enjoyed that to.  My thoughts on it; CoH at the lower levels, yes you were the "glorified sidekick" because, well, your starting out and new, but even then, your still getting to save the world, as alot of story archs have you doing just that.  Like the missions in faultline(do ignore Penelope yins presence there a second), or the vahzilok missions you do in Skyway city, for example, both have you saving paragon city or even the world from nasty takeover.  But it balanced out; they knew you were a startup hero, not a veteran.  But as you got to higher and higher levels, so did the stakes in alot of area's(save the 30-40 range, but even that got fixed later in the games life).  In CO your the center of the world in day one practically, and I end up feeling like mary sue for it at times.  It doesn't have the same feel because, well, it's given to you, not earned.

exactly... the NPCs charging up to you and fawning all over you about the tutorial just... blech.  I much preferred the casual name drops used in CoH to the "OMG JUST THE WAY YOU DEFEATED THE Q'LAR!!!!"

[healix]

No, I was not. I've made some avatars and banners, but never any icons

I'm sorry, my brain did a vapor lock...I remembered today that the icons were created by Corva. I sure wish I could get those back to save in my CoH memorabilia. (Does anyone still have the zips for the enhancemants and insps? They were awesome!!!)
 

[corvus1970]

Well, considering the name similarity I'd say that was an easy mistake to make

[Blondeshell]

I'm sorry, my brain did a vapor lock...I remembered today that the icons were created by Corva. I sure wish I could get those back to save in my CoH memorabilia. (Does anyone still have the zips for the enhancemants and insps? They were awesome!!!)

Technically, they were created by Corva_NA, aka Basilikon, and you can get download links to them here. There's a slightly later version of the icon collection here, but I can't say for sure if that was the last update for either pack.

[Felderburg]

I have two zip files in my Google Drive stuff. They may be what you want, but I'm not sure what version they are or where I got them: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzbPxewaK5DgYmJicXRKVDhKNFk/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzbPxewaK5Dgd0NzZ1cybnJZanc/edit?usp=sharing

[healix]

Feldderburg, that second one is the both the power and insp icon textures for the game, and the first is the pics of them. Awesome that you saved those! Here's hoping they will be able to be used in the game again.  Blondshell, that site has both the power and insp-chiclet downloads! I am saving them in a file. Thank you so much.

[KingsGambit]

Hi all, I just signed up to the forum since I'm feeling a major pang months after CoV's closure. I love the idea of this thread and just wanted to contribute my own memories of a great game. I played from CoV on, I think Grandville/lvl 50 was around then and my first characters were a villains. Truth be told, I didn't like CoH as much. The zones weren't as good, I loathed those zones which lacked hospitals in particular. They were just too big and navigating with trains and zone exits was no where near as good as the ferries IMO.

Right now at this minute, I would dearly love to be able to log in and do an arc or a TF or something. So I'll settle for my favourite things about the game:

- My own memorable characters
I've played other MMOs and apart from a couple of them, I can barely remember most of my characters. They simply lacked personality, if such can be said. My CoV characters however all had unique and interesting identities. I usually stuck with colour schemes, but different costumes, they're biographies and power sets all came together to make each of them memorable. I miss those characters dearly.

- Sidekicking
Why other MMOs don't have this feature is quite simply beyond me. It is one of the greatest features of any MMO, bar none. The ability for us to play any character with any other character at any time, whilst remaining balanced and rewarding really does make me question why every single MMO doesn't allow it.

- Character Creator
It has to be mentioned. It was simply better than practically any other MMO including those released many years later. When considered alongside powersets, weapons, costume change emotes and so on, it allowed for truly wonderful creations.

- Instanced missions
There's a love or hate relationship with instancing and I'm firmly in the love category. One thing I loathe with a passion is having to find and kill 10 roaming miscreants in an open world area, with kill stealing, spawn camping, respawn timers and the rest. Instancing missions meant I always had my (or my team's) own zone which could be tackled at my pace.

There are so many more things to mention and all are equally memorable but the post is too long already. Just to give honorable mention to being able to have multiple characters with different roles to suit our moods, cool powers and the choice in how/when we acquired them, seamlessly integrated travel powers, cool vet rewards, the badges/accolades and an arcane "behind the scenes" number system :-)

[Super Firebug]

Welcome, KingsGambit! Being that you're newly-arrived, you might want to check under Multimedia, subheading Icon, to see how you can still create a CoX character, and run/fly around in the CoX maps. (The first couple of times might induce homesickness - they did, for me - but it gets enjoyable. ) Also, see the various Plan Z headings for news of the development progress of the various CoX successor projects. Keep your cape handy, pally; we're not licked yet. Also, if you play Champions, Star Trek or Neverwinter, there's a chat channel called CoX, where you can talk with your fellow refugees. Again, welcome!

[Tenzhi]

There were really only two other options.  And while I liked the basic gameplay better in both of the other options, CoH had better overall costume creation (despite ChO having a few options I liked more).  It offered far more character slots.  It had a better variety of largely more effective powers (especially when it came to controls, buffs, and debuffs, IMO) even if it was more restrictive than I'd prefer.  And I was hooked on their forums.

It was too equipment-focused, but that was common between all three, with DCUO being the worst in that regard for tying equipment up with costume options too much.  Endurance sucked.  And Incarnate abilities could have been better implemented.

[HEATSTROKE]

It was the first.. It was the best.. It had the best community.. It eventually learned to listen to its players.. The devs engaged the community ACTIVELY... They gave the people what they asked for.. Powers by and large were good.. It was relatively simple to play for any age group.. I knew 9 year olds that played and people in their 60's that played.. It was very casual..You could play every day and do something and have fun.. whether it was gain a level.. do a task force.. have fun at a costume events.. RESPEC ( my favorite thing )...

The best thing to me about City of Heroes is that it could be for YOU whatever you wanted it to be...

[Stone Daemon]

It was one of the few games that didn't impose unnecessary slow traveling (or paid travel) on players. I don't want to slog through a zone under fire from random mobs just to reach the rest of my team.

It was one of the few that had interesting and involved missions. No forced "Kill X number of baddies" ad nauseam.

There were almost no restrictions on who you could team with (even the villain/hero gap was being done away with to an extent).

These are three of the things I look for in any new MMO I try out. They have all failed me to some degree.

[Dollhouse]

Great points, Stone Daemon! In the early years, travel was a bit more deliberate, as the tram network was less extensive, etc., but the travel powers worked so well (even if you didn't get them until lvl14) that getting around was still pretty painless. Prior to lvl14, things could get tricky (getting to the Icon at the far end of Steel Canyon, for example), but I personally loved the challenge.

Want an example of a game in which getting places is sheer tedium? Look no further than TOR. You spend more time running around than you do anything else, especially on a new planet on which you haven't got the speeder locations mapped yet. Fail.

No other MMO comes close in terms of teaming flexibility (although level-less TSW comes pretty close). The refinements to the sidekick/exemplar system resulted in the hands-down best system I've ever seen for team making. Whatever characters your friends felt like playing for any given session, you could make it work.

And yes, only a handful of MMOs have managed to have such involved and well-written missions as CoX. There's good stuff in TSW, but the extensive use of voiceovers and the "pick from a menu" response trees tend to lock your character in to a narrow range of choices in terms of character development. For roleplayers, it's annoyingly restrictive. CoX allowed exponentially greater flexibility in this area. Only TSW has better mission writing (but TSW is simply in another league in terms of overall writing, cutscenes, etc., from all other MMOs...it's that game's greatest strength).

As I've said elsewhere, other MMO studios have so much to learn from City...

[thunderforce]

Great points, Stone Daemon! In the early years, travel was a bit more deliberate, as the tram network was less extensive, etc., but the travel powers worked so well (even if you didn't get them until lvl14) that getting around was still pretty painless. Prior to lvl14, things could get tricky (getting to the Icon at the far end of Steel Canyon, for example), but I personally loved the challenge.

I could have done with a wee bit less of the journey from the hospital in Atlas to mission doors in awkward spots in the Hollows, but that's the only time I really felt it overdid it.

[Super Firebug]

I got tired of running my level 6 toons through The Hollows, and getting the attention of reds and purples, pretty quickly, and made a habit of going to Kings Row to get the jet pack first.

[thunderforce]

I got tired of running my level 6 toons through The Hollows, and getting the attention of reds and purples, pretty quickly, and made a habit of going to Kings Row to get the jet pack first.

Jet pack? You kids don't know you're born. :-)

It used to be much, much worse. One of the early revelations for me, about i5 or so, was "actually, you don't have to set foot in the Hollows". The only downside was enough other people on Union had had that revelation (or outlevelled the missions), sometimes you'd get 8 for the Cavern of Transcendence and then realise no-one had actually finished the arcs. :-/

[FatherXmas]

I got tired of running my level 6 toons through The Hollows, and getting the attention of reds and purples, pretty quickly, and made a habit of going to Kings Row to get the jet pack first.

Back in my day we didn't have a jet pack, we had to learn how to use cover to run from the Atlas gate to the opposite corner to the door so we could recover whatever Azura lost again.  Without that you wouldn't have appreciated the Jingle Jet Pack we got that Christmas as much.

[GamingGlen]

One of my big disappointments when I started playing COH was not being able to have a travel power at the start. 
That was a deliberate time sink mechanic.

Another was not having any defense for a blaster.


One thing I do like about CO: after playing the tutorial once with any new characters you can opt to skip the tutorial and start at level 6 when a travel power is available.

[thunderforce]

Back in my day we didn't have a jet pack, we had to learn how to use cover to run from the Atlas gate to the opposite corner to the door so we could recover whatever Azura lost again.  Without that you wouldn't have appreciated the Jingle Jet Pack we got that Christmas as much.

Did they rewrite all the missions where Magical Artifacts Guarded Ineptly lost something after the fall of Galaxy?

I remember the Jingle Jet. IIRC, I went and created a few characters I just had half-baked concepts for during the Winter Event - if I got the name and the powerset right, I could fix up the costume later and save myself some walking.

I didn't really mind the lack of a travel power at the start - bit tiresome at release, but once Sprint/Hurdle were inherent and contacts less coy about their numbers, I was happy enough getting it at 14; the newbie zones were pretty small, and XP comes in fast enough at the start.

And really, blasters? If they had defences, what's the point in being a scrapper? The blaster's meant to be the cocaine effect; it feels great until the crash, and you've just got to take the enemy down before they can do unto you. If there's one thing I hated about Inventions, it was the idea of blasters at the defence cap.

[Ironwolf]

Jet pack? You kids don't know you're born. :-)

It used to be much, much worse. One of the early revelations for me, about i5 or so, was "actually, you don't have to set foot in the Hollows". The only downside was enough other people on Union had had that revelation (or outlevelled the missions), sometimes you'd get 8 for the Cavern of Transcendence and then realise no-one had actually finished the arcs. :-/

One of my SGs used to run the Caverns every day. If done right you can stealth the whole thing with recall and a Mind controller with Confuse. We would do it in 7-9 minutes.

[KingsGambit]

Welcome, KingsGambit! Being that you're newly-arrived, you might want to check under Multimedia, subheading Icon, to see how you can still create a CoX character, and run/fly around in the CoX maps. (The first couple of times might induce homesickness - they did, for me - but it gets enjoyable. ) Also, see the various Plan Z headings for news of the development progress of the various CoX successor projects. Keep your cape handy, pally; we're not licked yet. Also, if you play Champions, Star Trek or Neverwinter, there's a chat channel called CoX, where you can talk with your fellow refugees. Again, welcome!

Thank you so much for such a warm welcome. I'm glad I'm not the only CoX refugee and this thread helps a lot :-) What a great community. I have actually already tried the icon program (actually finding it is what led me to this thread). I'm also a CoT backer on Kickstarter and while I have (lifetime) accounts on CO and STO I must admit I didn't spend too long with them. CO was missing something that I couldn't put my finger on. I enjoyed STO, but playing Klingon side I ran out of content very fast. I thoroughly enjoyed the ground missions and may reinstall it someday (and when I do I will certainly join the CoX channel).

Homesickness is a great way to describe this feeling right now, though it's still surreal to realise that the home isn't there to return to. :-( My greatest hope is that there'll be a private server working someday. Have never played any game on one, but would gladly do so now.

One of my big disappointments when I started playing COH was not being able to have a travel power at the start. 

You must admit tho, that it did make getting the travel power that little bit more special and rewarding. It vastly changes the game by taking away the threat of random encounters. I will agree tho that it did make for some painfully slow going at first. And then I got the vet badge that allowed picking up the travel power straight away at lvl 6. That was lovely o.o I actually used one of the real-money travel powers for my last character. Returning to the game after a spell away maybe June-ish a year ago, I made a Rogue mastermind named "Growl Rawr". He was tiny size with costumes as a leopord, tiger, wolf but had a giant tiger costume for "bad arse mode" etc. and I exclusively used beast run with him; it was a lot of fun to move about with his four legged, furry retinue in tow. Just a shame the nature secondary powerset hadn't been released at the time as it would have been the perfect secondary.

One thing I didn't like was actually quite specific to the archetypes. Three in particular. Namely stalkers and blasters in PvP and corruptor in PvE. My first char was a corruptor and was disappointed when after lvl 25ish he seemed to become less and less effective as he levelled. All other ATs gained power as they levelled, but the corruptor got noticeably weaker. He ended up a great healer/support character, but sucked at soloing.

I did love how homey the game felt tho. How even after months away, one could return and still feel immediately familiar and at home. Because multiple characters with different mentors over the years eventually covered most missions, sometimes revisiting older zones like Atlas, Mercy or Port Oakes, I'd be flying over and I'd remember something that happened there, maybe years earlier.

And what other game, or MMO, can one have so many different characters/powersets and swap between them without thought. Between muscle-memory and simply knowing our characters so well, we could swap our healer for a domi, MM, scrapper, whatever and get straight to it without a pause. I think I could still pull off my twin-blade/regen scrapper's combos if I could log in as him right now.