CITY OF HEROS

[Grailknight]

Just for an update.

 

The game is running and stable across over a dozen servers. Rules vary concerning Vet Rewards and the WW market. Some servers are i24 which was the last playtest and others are i25 and have things that were going to be added and are new to the game.

 

Having fun and meeting players from around the world especially Finland and New Zealand.

[zslane]

My buddy—who used to play with me and some other friends of ours back in the day—is really liking the Sentinel archetype in I25. I like the fact that Homecoming unlocks all capes and auras without putting them behind compulsory level/content gates. We’re having a blast going through the content again and working our mains to L50.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Perhaps people could link servers and ways of getting logged in again?

[Killer Shrike]

I'm going to try to make some time to get up on this. I was huge into CoH from launch to shutdown (with a few gaps of play over the years due to life events). I had so many max level'd characters I honestly can't remember them all. Spent WAY to much time playing the game, STILL miss it years after shutdown. 

[zslane]

CREATE AN ACCOUNT
1) Create a Forum account at https://score.savecoh.com/index.php?action=register
2) Create your Game Account. This is the account that you will actually use to log into City of Heroes. To do this, click "Game Account" on the forums after signing into your forum account. You can find this just above the Announcements category. Alternatively, you may use this click: https://score.savecoh.com/index.php/board,1.0.html

INSTALL COH

1) Download Tequila if you're on Windows from http://patch.savecoh.com/tequila.exe, or Island Rum if you're on Mac OS from http://ir.powermad.net/islandrum-mac.zip.
2) Install the game in whatever directory you want. For Windows 8 and above, it is important that this is not in your Desktop, Documents, or Downloads folder due to permissions. We recommend installing to C:\Games\City of Heroes. It is also important to make sure Tequila goes into the same location as the rest of the CoH files.
3) Tequila and Island Rum should automagically download the client once you start them, but note that due to server load, your download may be slow.
4) Once Tequila or Island Rum have finished updated, ensure that "Homecoming" is selected at the top left and click "Play"

 

If you have any problems getting going, and there are lots of ways to run into problems (everything from account passwords that are too long to trying to run the game on a laptop or using a 4K monitor), I recommend joining the COH Discord or the Homecoming Discord.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm not gonna lie.

 

Logging into Atlas City, there were tears.

[zslane]

Hearing that music again. Seeing characters swarming around Ms. Liberty again. Paragon City is definitely my happy place.

[ScottishFox]

I might give this a shot this weekend.  I *REALLY* miss City of Heroes.

[Dr.Device]

I installed this yesterday and played a bit.

 

I wasn't a huge player before (I only got one character to 50), but I enjoyed it.

 

For my first character I recreated my previous level 50 Will Power/Super Strength Tanker as a Super Strength/Will Power brute.

 

I really like that the archetypes aren't restricted between the sides, now. Was that change made before the end, or was it introduced with the return?

[Killer Shrike]

1 hour ago, Dr.Device said:

I installed this yesterday and played a bit.

 

I wasn't a huge player before (I only got one character to 50), but I enjoyed it.

 

For my first character I recreated my previous level 50 Will Power/Super Strength Tanker as a Super Strength/Will Power brute.

 

I really like that the archetypes aren't restricted between the sides, now. Was that change made before the end, or was it introduced with the return?

 

That went in well before the end, but I don't recall the issue / release #.

[zslane]

Power sets were proliferated between archetypes little by little over the course of several issues.

 

I'd love to see the Homecoming team proliferate Weapon Mastery to Brutes.

[Dr.Device]

Thanks for the info!

 

My next character will be another originally-villainous archetype, the Robotics Mastermind (I think that's right).

 

I played a lot more Champions Online than I ever did CoH, but I think I like the play style of CoH better. In theory, I really liked the more freeform nature of powers in CO, but I feel like they never got the balance as good as it could have been. It also felt sort of like a half measure. One thing I definitely missed in CO was the CoH teleport. An actual teleport instead of a weird desolid+flight.

 

I'd love to see a super hero MMORPG that was more Hero-like in its philosophy, with special effects more separated from mechanics. I have ideas, but the probably isn't the place to go into them. 

[zslane]

My main character--currently 40th level--is a Hit Girl clone: Staff Fighting/Willpower Brute. I have two other versions of her (same costume) with different power sets, all of them Brutes: Street Justice/Willpower and Dual Pistols/Willpower, neither of which is even 15th level yet. All of them are fun to play, but I definitely prefer melee dps over ranged dps in terms of style of play.

[ScrewySquirrel]

I just restarted this past weekend, hanging out on Everlasting and recreating some favorite toons...problem is that I am an Altaholic -- back on live servers I had over 120 toons

[zslane]

City of Heroes is the game that fosters more altaholics than any other I know. Just embrace it as part of the game's culture!

 

The only potential downside to creating so many alts is that it may/will become challenging to keep all those names from becoming freed up due to lack of logins on infrequently played alts.

[ScottishFox]

Just logged in for a bit.

 

Man, that was a trip down memory lane.

[Jagged]

Its worth mentioning that there are other servers out there.

There is Thunderspy who are doing the most powerset related changes

and

Rebirth who are more conservative and are probably the closest to the game experience as it was when it was live.

 

These are small population servers, if that matters to you.

[BigJackBrass]

Downloaded, logged on, recreated my old character Mr Biceps (seen here with, uh, Farmer Ted in the background)... It was like going back home 🙂 I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the game. Thanks to all who posted , letting me know that it was still possible to play.

[Lord Liaden]

Just curious if any of you COH gamers are/were playing Champions Online?

[BigJackBrass]

9 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Just curious if any of you COH gamers are/were playing Champions Online?

Yes, I played it from fairly early on, took a break for a few years due to a rather disruptive change in my personal situation, then tried it again last year.

 

It still disappointed me. Everything looked so good, the style and design of almost every part of the game was wonderful, but fights were dull compared to CoH (the interface/mechanism never engaged me) and I got lost in all of the upgrades and things you had to manufacture. Crafting items is something I loathe in any game (it's there in CoH, although it seems more ignorable) but it feels entirely out of place in a supers game. I think I'd rather return to base and hand over the spoils to a resident boffin who would have some new gadget ready for you the next time you dropped by.

 

Ultimately, the real killer was that I found Champions Online unsatisfying solo; and while I enjoyed the team play it grew increasingly difficult to find a team. I'll probably have another crack at it once I've run around CoH punching muggers for a while.

 

Here's a blurry snap of Mr Biceps early in his CO days:

Edited March 5, 2020 by BigJackBrass

[zslane]

I also tried Champions Online when it was first released. I was disappointed by the zone designs, the missions, and the overall look. As natural as it may seem to do cel-shaded rendering for a superhero game, it just didn't work for me. But overall I think the biggest problem for me was that, in my view, City of Heroes got practically everything right, and so all other MMORPGs suffered by comparison, especially the superhero ones.

 

It is 2020 and the gameplay and graphics are well over a decade old at this point, but I still prefer playing City of Heroes to any other MMORPG out there. (In fact, I play twice a night with a buddy of mine, and occasionally play solo a little on weekends.)

[sinanju]

I played Champions Online for quite a while, then dropped it for years. Took it up again about a year ago (new PC with better ability to handle graphics). The server is a lot less crowded than it once was, and while I had some fun for a while, eventually I lost interest again.

 

I'm interested to try City of Heroes. I've heard lots of good things about it but never got a chance to try it back in the day. Guess it's time to recreate my CO characters in City of Heroes. So if you see Iron Maiden, Silverstreak, Trollop, Doctor Syence, or the Man-Ape around, say hello!

[sinanju]

Well...I downloaded the game and logged on and created a couple of characters and went thru the tutorial, and...I'm not impressed.

 

The character graphics seem inferior to what I see in Champions Online, though I will admit that there are countless options for character design (though I find the interface unintuitive) and you don't have to buy any of them.

 

I'm thoroughly confused by the assortment of powers, enhancements, inspirations, and zillion other options. I have no idea what I'm doing, and while that might be normal for a first-time player, it isn't much fun--and the tutorial wasn't very helpful at all.

 

I'm also bummed about not having a travel power from the beginning (as in Champions Online), and I'm unclear on when/if/how I acquire one.

 

Frankly, I have a better opinion of CO now that I see what COH looks like.

[Grailknight]

59 minutes ago, sinanju said:

Well...I downloaded the game and logged on and created a couple of characters and went thru the tutorial, and...I'm not impressed.

 

The character graphics seem inferior to what I see in Champions Online, though I will admit that there are countless options for character design (though I find the interface unintuitive) and you don't have to buy any of them.

 

I'm thoroughly confused by the assortment of powers, enhancements, inspirations, and zillion other options. I have no idea what I'm doing, and while that might be normal for a first-time player, it isn't much fun--and the tutorial wasn't very helpful at all.

 

I'm also bummed about not having a travel power from the beginning (as in Champions Online), and I'm unclear on when/if/how I acquire one.

 

Frankly, I have a better opinion of CO now that I see what COH looks like.

 

Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your trial.

 

The graphics, while still tolerable, are dated compared to CO but you should be able to help that somewhat by turning them up to their highest setting. The computers of today can chew up and spit out almost anything the old engine was capable of.

You finished the tutorial and were 2nd level and you are able to acquire a travel power at 6th level which would take you about  1-2 hours of playing thru the intro stories and depending on the server you can/will get an pseudo travel power at 4th. Hero side intro is a little shorter than villain but mostly due to the intro maps. 

 

I play mostly on Rebirth(Global Name:@Scatterstar), which is a server very close to the live version of the game. Homecoming is the largest of the servers and has more development currently.

[zslane]

City of Heroes was my first ever MMORPG when I started playing it back in 2004. I didn't find it immediately intuitive either, and I might have given up on it if I hadn't had the published strategy guide to explain and make sense of it all. Today, of course, I think a lot of the fundamentals would be familiar to anyone who has played any other MMORPG. It's just the power sets/enhancements system that is where the learning curve resides, and even then they are pretty simple compared to most MMOs out there. I'm pretty sure that guides which explain the game are still available online if one looks for them.