The wild events of the last few days have brought me sniffing around again for the latest on the hullabaloo.
Just for the record, after I was "downsized" following my stroke I was only out of work for a week. Another medical outfit in town needed a guy (dumb luck) and my knowledge of lasers, glaucoma, etc sealed the deal. We're both happy with each other. I don't have the sensation I did on the right side of my body, but two years later I can walk without a limp most of the time and I'm doing pretty well. A friend turned me onto Skyrim and I got proficient with a mouse again slaying dragons with the occasional Fus Ro Dah thrown in for good measure. I figured it was the closest I'll ever get to playing a super hero or super villain again. And then all this surfaced. Its rather like the heroes couldn't manage to bring the game back so now the villains are having a crack at forcing the issue. (Not casting any aspersions on anyone; especially if it succeeds.)
I was thinking how nice it would be to team and interact again. Feeling nostalgic, I looked at things I had archived CoH related and found a slew of forum posts from 2008 titled Rude Tells. And it reminded me of "Sonic Speeded Man" pestering me to let him join my team (I was soloing) and then once in my mission map begging me for influence. Like a blockhead I gave him some and he replied, "Got any more?" And I remember how I encountered that team that got me to join so they could teleport me to a great height to watch me fall and splat. How I played solo for months because at the time I was playing a blaster that caused knockback that everyone hated. And then there were the people full of sage wisdom and anxious to share it on how my costume sucks and my build sucks and how I'm playing wrong. I don't give a rats behind about having the "best" build or employing the "best" tactics. I'm in it to have fun and if they don't like it there are lots of other people to team with. I was tired of all the negativity. All I wanted was the ability to play offline and how much it irked me that having bought CoH and CoV off a store shelf they would be useless if the servers ever shut down.
And in spite of all that I want to do it again. Because it wasn't all grief and buttholes. There were the guys I had tanked for the previous day wanting me back again saying, "God dang it, we need Goddangit!" There was the Tell I got in the dead of night on a quiet server asking for my controller to help because they needed someone, anyone to help them in a Council mission where they were being handed their proverbial butts. And when they found out my secondary was Empath and I could heal and rez proclaimed, "I love you." I met some good people and had a helluva lot of fun. I want to do it again.