I maxed out my fire farmer on there and now randomly hop on and boost players. I try warn new players as it deletes the whole experience of the game, but will run them if they so choose.
I really want a modern MMO made in this kind of style. Idk how to explain it, but early 2000's MMO just hit so different and I love that style even to this day
City of Heroes will forever have a special place in my heart I’ve been playing since it released all those years ago and I was ecstatic when I found out about the private servers coming online Great video!
Hey that's me!! Thanks for doing this video and bringing some more awareness for the current young ones who maybe had never heard of this game. Great video! You gonna stick around Homecoming and play some? If you do, keep an eye out for Letcho on Excelsior, that's me!
YESS Finally! Still one of the best MMOs to this day IMO. Seeing your face when you were able to fly was exactly how I felt when I was a kid and got flight for the first time!
I FUCKING love this game. Nothing compares. My partner never played an MMO outside of Runescape. And immediately fell in love with it as well. Stands the test of time.
So, a few things - First, keep enjoying. :) Second, leveling is faster with a group, even if you don't do task forces/strike forces. Teaming with the higher groups means more XP, sure, but I find keeping closer to be... more fun. And as far as group, solo, or Task/Strike forces, I find a mix keeps things interesting. Granted, I've played them... forever. Third, the cross faction thing wasn't added by Homecoming - back on live, "Going Rogue" (which introduced Praetoria) was also what introduced side switching. Fourth - while you were looking at your enhancements higher up - you may have noticed they were red. That indicates they've expired - you've outleveled them. You can either replace them or, if you have the (in game) cash, hit the "upgrade" button in the lower left - that's a Homecoming addition. Fifth... the drabness is very much a "Redside" (villain side) thing. Atlas Park - the hero starting zone - is, by contrast, very clean and shiny looking, and starting in Praetoria it's... literally even shinier. *laughs.* I'm fairly sure it's where they started introducing things like reflective windows (in "ultra" mode - which, back in the day, did bring some PCs to a crawl.) There are a *lot* of systems and things... granted, some of which seem somewhat disjointed, but don't forget, this was added on to from 2004-2012, then through the "secret server" days run by SCORE, then picked up in 2019 by all the servers you see now. If you want more power and customizability, the invention system - which is... sort of "enhancements plus" gives ways to do things like give global damage, defense and recharge buffs, added effects to powers, etc. The Incarnate system - a post-50 leveling system - puts in more abilities (that often *are* called overpowered) to use in that content - and which you keep from 45 on - as well as permanent level shifts... Architect Entertainment (AE) is - well, where you'll find most farms, but you'll also find a good bit of player-developed story content - there's just a lot of other things to explore. It's something I could talk about for hours, honestly. (Also the game *really* encourages alts. Like you saw... 1000 slots. Per server. I tend to tell people to use them - mess with combos, if you don't like them, you don't have to delete, just make another - sometimes coming back to an old character will mean it "clicks" better with you.)
couple notes from a long time player 1. Yeah, the visual style of zones is probably the biggest complaint about Villain-side content. Heroes and Villains exist in entirely different zones: Villains are in the Rogue Isles, and Heroes exist in Paragon City. (This is because Villains were introduced in the City of Villains expansion, two years after launch) The Rogue Isles are not a very lively place. However, Paragon City is more city but much brighter and more varied, with lots more zones with things like parks and gardens, large bodies of water, one zone is almost entirely full of canals, some zones are islands, there's a group of zones set in outer space, etc. I get what they were going for with Villain zones being dark and grungy but it's very samey compared to Paragon. Pretty much all the endgame zones however (Rikti War Zone for 35+, Cimerora for 40+, and Dark Astoria at 50, along with the mid-game Striga Isle zone at level 20-30) are cross-faction co-op, as is much of the endgame content. 2. For your pet healing, you can just drag inspirations on top of them haha, you can heal them with green inspirations, buff them with red/yellow/orange, etc. I don't know if the game ever mentions this? You also get a bunch of support and healing powers in your secondary. 3. Yes, enhancements in your pet powers affect the pets they summon. They're VERY useful. Another thing about enhancements that I'm not sure if you noticed is that they stop being effective as you outlevel them, so early on you need to be getting new ones from vendors or drops to keep up with leveling. Later on you unlock the Inventions crafting system which allows you to create more powerful Enhancements that you don't outlevel that can even come with set bonuses and special passive benefits. 4. As far as faction switching goes, that was originally in the game before Homecoming and other private servers. At level 20+ you start getting Tip Missions as random drops, which allow you to start earning Alignment Points that (eventually) let you switch from Villain to Rogue to Hero, or Hero to Vigilante to Villain. Homecoming just gave us the quick shortcut through Null The Gull lol. This is another reason why the game is so Hero-stacked at this point, especially on Homecoming, since there's an easy way to become a Hero or one of the neutral sides (Rogue and Vigilante) why would you stay as just a villain? If you ever come back to the game, I'd recommend trying out a hero, just to see how the other side lives. There's also the Praetorian Earth storyline, which takes place in an alternate "evil doppelganger" dimension where Loyalists work to uphold Emperor Cole's beautiful utopia (as long as you follow every rule!), while the Resistance work to take down his actual fascist dystopia. It's harder than the base game, and only lasts until about level 20 (unless you come back for the optional First Ward and Night Ward cross-faction zones) but it has some very interesting stories with actual choices and consequences that follow you through the missions, along with a much brighter and cleaner aesthetic in the city (unless you go hang out in the Underground...) Also, you mentioned Task Forces, and that's the main group content throughout all the levels. You can just do any mission you have as a group, like you did, but the Task Forces are something different: They're a series of linked missions designed for group play with their own stories and rewards, usually culminating in big boss battles and/or really cool setpiece missions. (Hero and cross-faction ones are called Task Forces, Villain ones are known as Strike Forces) They're easy to start too, once you've hit the minimum level requirement you can talk to the TF/SF contact and then recruit a team through LFG, since there are a lot of neutral characters (Rogues and Vigilantes) recruiting for Strike Forces is usually pretty easy. There's also the Death From Below and Drowning In Blood trials for low-level characters of both factions that are meant to power-level you through the first 15-20 levels or so if you want to skip the early zones, they're always recruiting in LFG and also have their own matchmaking queue. Hope to see you back in the City one day!
I've played CoH since 2010 and even I didn't know you could put your inspirations on your pets. Thanks!. Very thorough comment, I would only add that the Signature Story Arcs are also some great sets of missions to play solo with quite a bit more work on the cut scenes. I would also mention that players can create their own missions and story arcs, some are really good, and you can build your own base as well.
Thanks for giving this game a good review. I discovered it on Homecoming Server in 2019 and I play this game all the time- even more than I play modern games. I love it that much. You just scratched the surface of this amazing game. There is so much more for you to discover!
very good video, glad you covered the game as i’ve been playing since 2008. i play on the excelsor server on homecoming, usually just running missions in pocket d with other players. there are actually quite a lot of villain players, in lfg chat you’ll see them advertise their groups as ‘red side’ . there’s no right way to level, just have fun playing. personally i’ve always enjoyed fire farms and kit my characters out for fire resist/defense and run huge custom maps with fire enemies, for leveling alts and other players, aswell as in game currency for enhancement upgrades. there’s a lot to this game once you hit max level, i encourage you to stick around!
there is also most definitely thousands of players on homecoming, tens of thousands even. the game runs strictly on donations (roughly 5-7 thousand dollars a month) which get satisfied on the first day the donation link gets posted to the forum.
I used to play this game with my uncle. I played for about 3 months and then it was shut down. He started a podcast to try and bring it back and i moved on to champions online. Now i know its back im downloading it and i told him about it. Here's the comeback!
That's my comment!! First time that's ever happened to me. Waited to watch this so I could show my partner. She played this game back in beta!! Thanks for that hype moment!
It was released in sort of the wild west era of MMOs. Early 2000s was GOOD EATING for the genre. Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online, Eve Online, Guild Wars, Dark Age of Camelot, EQ2 and obviously WoW. We were spoiled for choice and the games all felt like they brought something different to the table.
I wish you would have tried the Hero side though. I love the red side too but for the sake of the video, the blue side is much more populated and the scenery isn't as depressing. Think Gotham City for the villains compared to Metropolis for the Heroes. That 1000 character slot thing is completely validated too. You can make sooooo many different combinations of powers. You'll definitely need to make some alts to see what works best for you.
Just to be clear, the "license" does not exempt Homecoming from being taken down by NCSoft. They can still be taken down at any time if NCSoft wants to.
You can swap between hero or villian or in between at any time so all content is available, also you can change the font size. Hero side of the game is brighter villian side is mostly dark.
In fairness, that’s if you are first learning, are reading a lot, and don’t use the leveling assistance tools. As an experienced player, I can reach level 10 in a little over an hour, and even less if I use “cheaty” methods.
yeah stuff like the group Death From Below trial, which is always recruiting and even has matchmaking, will level you from 1-10 in like 15 minutes haha
The dark cityscape thing is mostly for the villainy side. The hero and Praetoria sides have the cities a lot cleaner and more colorful. There's also more people moving around in those cities.
I played this game for years and years, I have actual watercolor paintings of some of my characters that I commissioned back when I was playing, and I have a folder full of art both commissioned, and random art from the forums as artists had threads where you could post your character for artists to use for practice, etc. Even have a screenshot of my main character's bio, as an actual published author named Mercedes Lackey a fantasy writer had a thread on the forum offering to redo peoples backstories into a short snippet that fit in the limited bio in game, so mine is by an actual author... who I ended up chatting with as I love cars... the topic came up due to her name, turns out she'd bought her husband a DeTomaso Pantera, his dream car, thanks to her books. Anyways getting off topic here... I made so many friends in this game it was heartbreaking when it got closed down, I still miss it, as it's one of those games where combat was just fun, though likely very lacking in animation and graphics nowadays, back then it was my way to relax, before I knew I had ADHD CoH was my way to basically keep my brain busy, just going around fighting mobs, testing new characters with new powers, etc. I love this game still...
One of my fave games of all time. I played in the beta, and was super upset when they announced the closure. (Partially because greedy NCSoft did so because it didnt print money like WoW, even tho it had a stable dedicated fan base that made it enough money). Was super stoked to find the Homecoming server a few years back, and was even more stoked (and surprised) that NCSoft gave it the greenlight to be an official server. IM so glad you had a great time. Also, the city areas are much more colorful and vibrant if you play as a hero lol, the villains play in a region of the city thats been like, abandoned to the villains, so its understandably derelict. Im always thinking about how almost every zone is some spin on "metropolis" cityscape but theyre all unique in their own ways. If you stick with it, def make a hero or ten and experience that side of things. :) Welcome to Paragon!
The shady night club is called Pocket D, it was the hang out place for a lot of people, me included. it is a safe place for both heores and villians to go, and just hang out. And that is where I was, dancing my toons life away when the virtue server was sunset in the original game.... sooo much fun was had. My main was an ice/ice tank, and my build was more like a tank/cc which was really cool concept
As a long time player, some thoughts: 1) You aren't limited to being just a villain. You can take a half step up as a villain OR a half step down as a hero and be a Rogue/Vigilante This would give you access to hero AND villain sides and quests. To do this, you can take the slow route and do alignment missions. These come from TIPS you find. The quick way is to see Null the Gull sitting on a truck in Pocket D. 2) The leveling is slow because you were solo and did not buff your XP from the START vendor in Mercy Island. Not saying you should do that, but it's highly worth considering as using the basic table will take you forever to level once you near the 40s. 3) Villains side is like playing in an Island chain version of Gotham City.. Villains own the Rogue Islands so if you think it's going to be bright and cheerful, you're on the wrong side of town. Praetoria (If you were praetorian) and paragon (If you went hero) are mostly bright and sunny.
By the way, if you need to adjust the UI, especially to increase font size, you can do so in the Options menu. It is actually kinda crazy how much you can customize the look and feel of the game through options. Thanks for trying this out!
My home away from home. I play here on Everlasting, and lead the Welcome Wagon's project, to help new players interested in roleplaying in the game and assist with the RP Workshop's lead by Dimi and Mcspazz. This game holds a very special place in all of our hearts. :)
So, quick correction on 25:00 Null the Gull was originally added at the tail end of COH live, and was kept in the game when Homecoming opened it's doors to the public. Null the Gull can also turn off Group Flight, Group Buffs, and a few other options if you look at his menu in detail. Oh quick tip for MM pets in combat, set them to defend, they will attack anything that attacks you.
Just a few other tips for new players: You can set a skill to autocast once it's off cooldown by holding cntrl and clicking the skill you want to autocast. This is best used for healing auras, and buffs that are hugely beneficial for group runs. You can add and change how your toolbars are set as well as move other elements of the UI to fit your own personal comfort for gameplay. Unfortunately the UI text cannot be bumped up in size, however this is something that's still in development with modernizing, but you can use mods to make the text more readable in the chat windows, and various other elements of the game through modding. The HC forums actually has a modding tool and library open to the public for anyone that wishes to mod their game and change a few elements or sounds, or even appearance of the login and roster screens of the game. (And a few other fun little tweaks too from what I've seen on the mod library with City Modder.) Additionally, you can create Custom Windows, which allow you to drag and drop skillbuttons, macros, or macro menu's called Popmenu's for a mobile little interface you can move anywhere on your game screen, this can provide more accessibility for those that use macros a lot (*raises hand* I do, for a better emote menu, and a few custom menu's I built over the years since 2019 and yes, they are available on the City Modder library for use.) Lastly, there are some shorthand terms in COH that are not too commonly seen in other games, so don't be afraid to ask questions, the players of the community are very well versed and helpful to new players, and yes, we have a lot of players that offer XP farms for those that don't want to wait or grind out missions to level their characters up. (Guilty as charged, lol played since live, and joined HC as soon as it was open to the public, soooo yeah, familiar with the arcs and missions, sort of run my own thing with the Architect Entertainment system in the game. You might want to do a video on that sometime, @Waydot, AE is actually flush with player made missions and arcs you might really enjoy.)
I’m a Red-sider (Villain) and population can be sparse. But that is fine, we don’t need pathetic Blue-siders (Heroes) cluttering up our streets. The Rouge Isles can feel bleak but that is the point. A city run by selfish, egotistical villains are not going to care about trash pickups and basic civic management. For me, I like the dirty and gritty feel of the various locations as I feel more villainous. Wait till you get to Spider City (Grandville), the seat of power of Lord Recluse and Arachnos. That place has great atmosphere and vibe to it.
@@7kortos7 There is an early level villain side quest line that is a henchman recruitment competition with other new villains (NPC) for an newly established villain. "Can't be taken as a serious villain if you don't have henchmen." It has you cheating, stealing, rig the competition and undermining the other villains as much as they do to you. Such a great quest line. I love it. You actually feel like a villain in a villain city.
I remember back in the day, there was an internet radio station that would host dance/costume parties on my server. Would run into their characters in game and start a random dance party.
Great review of the game from a new players eyes. I remembered testing some of the new player QoL stuff when it was in the open beta. It's mostly some wording on screens, pop up or two, and the jet pack. There's rest is base game when making your character.
Good news is if you're running on high resolutions you can go to the options menu and change the text and UI scaling to be more comfortable. You can also drag any UI element to any location, and sub menus can be detached from their parent completely. For example that map, you can click a little circle on the map window to detach it from the nav compass, allowing you to keep it open in a corner somewhere. That little circle is applicable in lots of places. There is also a small + icon on the power tray that allows you to create new floating power trays of your desired shape and move them anywhere. The game also supports a pretty broad array of macro commands. For example using /macro TRP "powexeclocation target tar patch" will create a new tray button that casts the tar patch ability on who ever you have targetted, instead of having to use the cursor to manually place it. If you really enjoy masterminds a lot, Thunderspy server has full pet customization although some animation rigs can be more jank than others.
Your son is SO adorable haha!! Sorry, I just had to say it! Amazing video, thank you SO Much for making this!!! I'm sure it will help anyone who is new to city of heroes, it definitely helped me and I've been playing for 2-3 years!!!
one note about the enhancements on your summoning abilities: they affect your summons stats too, so damage increases the damage of the minion, accuracy increases accuracy etc... and when you hover over the skill or slot, you can see what enhancements they can benefit from (for summons this varies depending on which abilities they have, for other skills, simply based on what they do)
To extend that point, When you start getting deeper into enhancements with invention sets this also opens up some pretty funny interactions. For example a minion with lots of attack abilities can make use of OverWhelming Force to add knock down to ALL of their damage skills just by slotting in one.
I would definitely like to see you do a new player video on DC Universe Online. I played that game a lot when I was younger, would like to see how it has changed over the years. Amazing video btw
I was unfortunate to find out about this game after it canceled and before private servers were a thing. Eager to get started on this as soon as I finish watching your video. Also the Text to voice thing should be solvable with A.I.. I'm Surprised no one has done that yet or maybe the core programming prevents that from happening.
@@coreydopson2030 just been trying to break in to an industry job for 14 years. T-T I know Blizzard wasn't the promised land, especially after all those lawsuits a few years back, but it's still super interesting to come across someone like you in a RUclips comment. What kinds of things did you work on?
@redcloud16 just WoW and Warcraft 3 Reforged... you know the lowest rated game in the history of meta critic. I was but a lowly QA analyst. I didn't really get to do anything that cool or exciting. Jobs fine, people are great for the most part but the people calling the shots make it a really terrible place to work. There is a reason they had to unionize recently. Follow your dream man i know how it felt for me when i first got the job. I too had been trying my entire adult life to work in gaming but please temper your expectations.
@@coreydopson2030 oh im fully tempered. i went to a game school and was burnt the hell out, and have many friends who actually made it into the industry (and several who swore it off and promised never to return). So, ive got a good idea of what its like. SOrry it was so shitty. Glad they unionized. (I worked at Nintendo QA testing for 11 months once may years ago, i know how that is...)
the most dated part of this game is the textures. everything else was so far ahead of it's time it still feels great. I really wanna play this game again.
Stumbled across this and must say I enjoyed your take. I have been playing CoH since the original Beta and allow me assure you that you have barely scratched the surface of the game. Also, as you get higher level the combat get more fast paced. Leveling solo can be slow. But, if you are feeling OP you can increase the difficulty on your missions as well and gain more XP. There is a vendor that sells double XP boosts (for free) as well.
Homecoming is fantastic. The game takes some getting used to if you’re coming from more modern MMOs but once it clicks it’s an experience like no other game out there.
Yes, it does have a bit too much of the grey city scapes, especially on the villain side, but it has a lot of other zones as well. Try a start in Praetorian Earth for a different feel. But you can travel to the Roman Empire, to the Moon, to Psychedelic space, fight alien invasions, and so, so, so much more. I agree that the text dialogues and the lack of many cut scenes and voice acting are holding the game back, although there is some of the last content added to the game that does this a lot better. There is so much content in this game, and so much re-playability because of all the different character choices you can make. This game goes both deep and wide, you have only scratched the surface.
I remember a very long time ago reading a preview of this new upcoming game in a magazine called Computeractive whilst having a poop lol. It sounded amazing and for the next few months I waited for it with baited breath. Then I got my hands on it and it blew me away. I played it up until divorce and beyond. Then I suffered the shit down. Turned to alcohol for a few years until, to my utter delight, it was there again! Still playing to this day. How many other games can do THAT??
I bought this as a kid and my dad couldn’t figure out how to set it up. Not long later I found out the servers were permanently down. I can finally play the dream game from my childhood
The Homecoming server's character creator and gameplay intro are significantly expanded from the initial release in 2004. The original game was 40 levels and Jack Emmert (Statesman) said it was all that was needed for the game in the beta. On release a player spent almost 72 hours grinding through the game and got to 40. Emmert freaked out so huge nerfs, 10 levels were added and Blobbidon the pathetic end game raid was added. NCSoft killed their entire North American software development group after Garriot ripped them off with Tabula Rasa so sadly even though it was still populated CoH and all of their NA games were shut down...
Initially you could only play heroes. When the City of Villains expansion came out you could now choose to be a villain. With Going Rogue they added the alignment system where you could switch from villain to rogue or hero to vigilante. This allowed you to play on either side. Some content is exclusive to heroes or villains which is why they added Null so you could change alignment quickly. 😅
It's worth mentioning that you were doing the Villain zones which are more gray than the Hero areas. Although I always really liked the villain areas myself as a kid though, especially Cap Au Diable and St. Martial. I'm surprised you didn't like Cap, definitely give st martial a look.
Great Video! Do you know about Champions Online?... That too is quite immersive and character customization is very deep. I just missed out on COH back in the day when DCUO (for PS3) got me into MMORPGs. I went from DCUO to Champions Online and at the time there were hoards of COH players joining Champions Online as COH was being shut down. So I unfortunately never got to play it. I did not know the game still exists out there. I'd love to finally take a crack at it and experience what all the hype was about. So, where do I go to get started?... I did not see any links here for COH game. Hopefully you can provide the link or links?...
Oh no, there's still the very real possibility that NCSoft will pull the plug, because they can do so when they feel like it, however, it just probably won't happen any time soon (hopefully).
Homecoming has an official license from NCSoft, the company that owns the legal rights to the content. It's as close as you will get to it being back. Still great community.
It's the best because it had no cash shop at all. Everything was unlocked you were not limited on character creation. So it was the best game and no other even came close afterwards.
Still love it! I have over 70 toons on HC, it's as good as it ever was, better in some ways, especially being completely f2p now :). One of the best nostalgia mmos out there right now - if you like spandex at all and haven't played this yet...what the hell are you waiting for??? ;) Btw, you really should have started in Atlas City as a hero - much better new player experience! ;) Also, starting area has a P2W vendor which gives you heaps of freebies and 100% XP boost. Really.
As a PlayStation main, who grow up off of City of Heroes/Villains, and Champions Online on PC. I absolutely loved playing this MMO, and now really wish they would put this on Console. 👍console players would the love this free to play game.
I only got into City of Heroes a year before it closed after having played World of Warcraft for many years. CoH was so much better, I was devastated when it closed and didn't play any other MMO for a long time. I'm so happy it is back. I consider it my favourite game, only Baldur's Gate 3 and Minecraft come close.
Hey Waydot. I'm glad you enjoyed your time with the game, but I've gotta say you sort of unintentionally picked the worst possible new player experience. You did villain-side with the outdated tutorials, the least interactive Archetype for combat, all to solo missions until you got picked up for content you weren't prepared for. And the benefit of soloing is having more time to read and enjoy some of the actually very well-written story arcs, and you didn't even get to do that. If I had a checklist for things I wouldn't want new players to experience, it would be pretty much everything you did, in order. The main issue I think is trying to play CoX like other MMOs, which you can do and is completely understandable *to* do, but it's not the best experience and doesn't really capture what makes the game great. The social experience of the game is what makes it shine-everything about it is meant to be experienced with other people. The character creator lets you show of your creativity. The missions scale with team sizes, and full eight person teams turn into a chaotic onslaught of explosions, and you level way faster. If you ever give it another shot, I'd highly recommend going hero side with like a Street Justice Scrapper or Stalker and hopping on a few DFBs (low-level raid) to jump past the first fifteen levels or so. You can even get a free Double XP buff to speed up the process at the P2W vender. If you need help figuring any of this out, just go into General or Help chat and identify yourself as a new player. Someone *will* come to show you the ropes.
Love this game. I play primarily on Cake New Dawn and Thunderspy servers though. I played CoH so obsessively (when I wasn't raiding in EQ1), I rolled up almost two dozen 50s. Don't feel too bad. Even when the game was live, heroes FAR outnumbered villains. The villain side's content was garbage in that it only allowed you to be mischievous, not actually EVIL. If CoV wrote the Joker, he'd be a shoplifter or an armed robber, he wouldn't be...The Joker. And in a world where action combat is the standard (and what most people are familiar with), tab-target combat systems can seem outdated. Then again, one reason why I could never get into Runescape was because of its graphical style so I get it. Different strokes and all that.
I remember when my uncle introduced me to this game when I was like 9. I made a buff midget version of Kane from WWE who used fire powers. Can’t recall what his secondary power was. Unfortunately we didn’t have a PC at my parents house so that was one of 2 times I got to play the game.
The grayish colors in Rogues Isles are intentional. This represents the demoralized state of a society controlled by supervillains. In contrast, Paragon City (hero side) is mostly saturated colors, representing a city protected by benevolent superheroes.
the dark/depressing kind of vibe is only on the Villain side; over in Paragon City it's much more vibrant. Even when I play villian archetypes, I still go blueside (Hero-side) because of this. The Rogue Isles (redside/Villian side) just feels oppressive while heroside it feels really vibrant, colorful, and captures a sense of wonder
i don't remember exactly offhand how you have to do this--it used to be that you would start your villain in the Rogue Isles always, but then later at like level 20 or so you could flip your alignment, and take that Villian into the blueside as a sort of anti-hero who isn't explicitly a bad guy anymore. I think now it'll let you build Villian ATs from the start blueside. for any new player I always recommend not starting Redside because of how oppressive it feels in those environments. Atlas Park in Paragon City is the best place to start IMO
overall I just never could really enjoy myself when in the Rogue Isles because the visuals. it was all hobbled together garbage, trash, muted browns and greys--they really did go all out in making the Villian side feel oppressive. It worked. Music in the game is phenomenal as you mentioned, so are the sound effects. Almost everything about this game was done very well.
As an old CoH vet who played it right from release, you actually missed the newer tutorial. Galaxy City is the newest iteration of that 3 choice loading in, added when the game went Free 2 Play. As for the rest: The Villains were the first sold expansion of the game, followed by the Praetorian content (which was designed with a more "shades of gray" type story, and a higher difficulty for experienced players). CoH was what I was playing when I bounced off Vanilla WoW, and colored my perspective on what I felt a good MMO was for many years to come. Just don't try the game Cryptic did as a follow up. Champions Online is a massive dissappointment compared to City of Heroes. And yes, everyone goes hero on Homecoming, the community is much smaller than CoH had when live, and Heroes really did get all the shiny new toys as the game progressed. Also, as an aside, you missed the true cost of dying in the game: XP debt. Instead of taking XP away from you, it would put you 'in debt', and you'd have to pay off that XP debt before you could continue to earn XP. This could have contributed to some of the slowdown you felt in levelling speed, tho not all of it. Soloing is SLOW going in game, but you did choose the right class for it. Until late game, Masterminds can solo stuff almost no one else can.
Please try Mabinogi, it was my favorite mmorpg to play back in the day. The game is also getting an Unreal Engine 5 update which there is a trailer for
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
The fact it was only live for 8 years but the fan made version is going on 12. WOW.
And they also got a license by NCSOFT !
Ncsoft could have still made money from it, us fans were still there, and we’re still here 🤷♂️
No.
The homecoming server is pretty good and very alive.
Didn’t it also receive a license by NCSOFT saying they can officially continue operations?
Edit: ignore me. Just got to the 2:45 mark.
I maxed out my fire farmer on there and now randomly hop on and boost players.
I try warn new players as it deletes the whole experience of the game, but will run them if they so choose.
except that its not alive 😂
I legit got no one to play with and I’m starting the game anyone wanna tag along?
What server you on @@jardellisebia866
I really want a modern MMO made in this kind of style. Idk how to explain it, but early 2000's MMO just hit so different and I love that style even to this day
we can only dream
Check out ship of heroes mmo if your looking for something new
Idk if DCUO is considered modern, but it's in the same style that you can try out. It's free on Steam.
@@scottbuckingham5626Is it on Steam?
Ship of heroes is the modern version
City of Heroes will forever have a special place in my heart
I’ve been playing since it released all those years ago and I was ecstatic when I found out about the private servers coming online
Great video!
Hey that's me!! Thanks for doing this video and bringing some more awareness for the current young ones who maybe had never heard of this game. Great video! You gonna stick around Homecoming and play some? If you do, keep an eye out for Letcho on Excelsior, that's me!
YESS Finally! Still one of the best MMOs to this day IMO. Seeing your face when you were able to fly was exactly how I felt when I was a kid and got flight for the first time!
I FUCKING love this game. Nothing compares. My partner never played an MMO outside of Runescape. And immediately fell in love with it as well. Stands the test of time.
Whats the game at 2:03? Anyone know? I remember playing it but don't remember the name
@@icac6122 Warhammer Return of Reckoning.
What abt dcuo?
hands down the best MMO in terms of pure fun
So, a few things - First, keep enjoying. :)
Second, leveling is faster with a group, even if you don't do task forces/strike forces. Teaming with the higher groups means more XP, sure, but I find keeping closer to be... more fun. And as far as group, solo, or Task/Strike forces, I find a mix keeps things interesting. Granted, I've played them... forever.
Third, the cross faction thing wasn't added by Homecoming - back on live, "Going Rogue" (which introduced Praetoria) was also what introduced side switching.
Fourth - while you were looking at your enhancements higher up - you may have noticed they were red. That indicates they've expired - you've outleveled them. You can either replace them or, if you have the (in game) cash, hit the "upgrade" button in the lower left - that's a Homecoming addition.
Fifth... the drabness is very much a "Redside" (villain side) thing. Atlas Park - the hero starting zone - is, by contrast, very clean and shiny looking, and starting in Praetoria it's... literally even shinier. *laughs.* I'm fairly sure it's where they started introducing things like reflective windows (in "ultra" mode - which, back in the day, did bring some PCs to a crawl.)
There are a *lot* of systems and things... granted, some of which seem somewhat disjointed, but don't forget, this was added on to from 2004-2012, then through the "secret server" days run by SCORE, then picked up in 2019 by all the servers you see now. If you want more power and customizability, the invention system - which is... sort of "enhancements plus" gives ways to do things like give global damage, defense and recharge buffs, added effects to powers, etc. The Incarnate system - a post-50 leveling system - puts in more abilities (that often *are* called overpowered) to use in that content - and which you keep from 45 on - as well as permanent level shifts... Architect Entertainment (AE) is - well, where you'll find most farms, but you'll also find a good bit of player-developed story content - there's just a lot of other things to explore.
It's something I could talk about for hours, honestly.
(Also the game *really* encourages alts. Like you saw... 1000 slots. Per server. I tend to tell people to use them - mess with combos, if you don't like them, you don't have to delete, just make another - sometimes coming back to an old character will mean it "clicks" better with you.)
couple notes from a long time player
1. Yeah, the visual style of zones is probably the biggest complaint about Villain-side content. Heroes and Villains exist in entirely different zones: Villains are in the Rogue Isles, and Heroes exist in Paragon City. (This is because Villains were introduced in the City of Villains expansion, two years after launch) The Rogue Isles are not a very lively place. However, Paragon City is more city but much brighter and more varied, with lots more zones with things like parks and gardens, large bodies of water, one zone is almost entirely full of canals, some zones are islands, there's a group of zones set in outer space, etc. I get what they were going for with Villain zones being dark and grungy but it's very samey compared to Paragon. Pretty much all the endgame zones however (Rikti War Zone for 35+, Cimerora for 40+, and Dark Astoria at 50, along with the mid-game Striga Isle zone at level 20-30) are cross-faction co-op, as is much of the endgame content.
2. For your pet healing, you can just drag inspirations on top of them haha, you can heal them with green inspirations, buff them with red/yellow/orange, etc. I don't know if the game ever mentions this? You also get a bunch of support and healing powers in your secondary.
3. Yes, enhancements in your pet powers affect the pets they summon. They're VERY useful. Another thing about enhancements that I'm not sure if you noticed is that they stop being effective as you outlevel them, so early on you need to be getting new ones from vendors or drops to keep up with leveling. Later on you unlock the Inventions crafting system which allows you to create more powerful Enhancements that you don't outlevel that can even come with set bonuses and special passive benefits.
4. As far as faction switching goes, that was originally in the game before Homecoming and other private servers. At level 20+ you start getting Tip Missions as random drops, which allow you to start earning Alignment Points that (eventually) let you switch from Villain to Rogue to Hero, or Hero to Vigilante to Villain. Homecoming just gave us the quick shortcut through Null The Gull lol. This is another reason why the game is so Hero-stacked at this point, especially on Homecoming, since there's an easy way to become a Hero or one of the neutral sides (Rogue and Vigilante) why would you stay as just a villain?
If you ever come back to the game, I'd recommend trying out a hero, just to see how the other side lives. There's also the Praetorian Earth storyline, which takes place in an alternate "evil doppelganger" dimension where Loyalists work to uphold Emperor Cole's beautiful utopia (as long as you follow every rule!), while the Resistance work to take down his actual fascist dystopia. It's harder than the base game, and only lasts until about level 20 (unless you come back for the optional First Ward and Night Ward cross-faction zones) but it has some very interesting stories with actual choices and consequences that follow you through the missions, along with a much brighter and cleaner aesthetic in the city (unless you go hang out in the Underground...)
Also, you mentioned Task Forces, and that's the main group content throughout all the levels. You can just do any mission you have as a group, like you did, but the Task Forces are something different: They're a series of linked missions designed for group play with their own stories and rewards, usually culminating in big boss battles and/or really cool setpiece missions. (Hero and cross-faction ones are called Task Forces, Villain ones are known as Strike Forces) They're easy to start too, once you've hit the minimum level requirement you can talk to the TF/SF contact and then recruit a team through LFG, since there are a lot of neutral characters (Rogues and Vigilantes) recruiting for Strike Forces is usually pretty easy. There's also the Death From Below and Drowning In Blood trials for low-level characters of both factions that are meant to power-level you through the first 15-20 levels or so if you want to skip the early zones, they're always recruiting in LFG and also have their own matchmaking queue.
Hope to see you back in the City one day!
I've played CoH since 2010 and even I didn't know you could put your inspirations on your pets.
Thanks!.
Very thorough comment, I would only add that the Signature Story Arcs are also some great sets of missions to play solo with quite a bit more work on the cut scenes.
I would also mention that players can create their own missions and story arcs, some are really good, and you can build your own base as well.
Thanks for giving this game a good review. I discovered it on Homecoming Server in 2019 and I play this game all the time- even more than I play modern games. I love it that much. You just scratched the surface of this amazing game. There is so much more for you to discover!
very good video, glad you covered the game as i’ve been playing since 2008.
i play on the excelsor server on homecoming, usually just running missions in pocket d with other players. there are actually quite a lot of villain players, in lfg chat you’ll see them advertise their groups as ‘red side’ .
there’s no right way to level, just have fun playing. personally i’ve always enjoyed fire farms and kit my characters out for fire resist/defense and run huge custom maps with fire enemies, for leveling alts and other players, aswell as in game currency for enhancement upgrades.
there’s a lot to this game once you hit max level, i encourage you to stick around!
there is also most definitely thousands of players on homecoming, tens of thousands even. the game runs strictly on donations (roughly 5-7 thousand dollars a month) which get satisfied on the first day the donation link gets posted to the forum.
I used to play this game with my uncle. I played for about 3 months and then it was shut down. He started a podcast to try and bring it back and i moved on to champions online. Now i know its back im downloading it and i told him about it. Here's the comeback!
That's my comment!! First time that's ever happened to me. Waited to watch this so I could show my partner. She played this game back in beta!! Thanks for that hype moment!
I played City of Heroes a long time ago. I didnt remember much but watching this vid brought back some memories
It was released in sort of the wild west era of MMOs. Early 2000s was GOOD EATING for the genre. Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online, Eve Online, Guild Wars, Dark Age of Camelot, EQ2 and obviously WoW. We were spoiled for choice and the games all felt like they brought something different to the table.
YEP. Those were the days
I wish you would have tried the Hero side though. I love the red side too but for the sake of the video, the blue side is much more populated and the scenery isn't as depressing. Think Gotham City for the villains compared to Metropolis for the Heroes.
That 1000 character slot thing is completely validated too. You can make sooooo many different combinations of powers. You'll definitely need to make some alts to see what works best for you.
7:05 your character looks wicked cool. perfect for teenage me that played this haha.
Just to be clear, the "license" does not exempt Homecoming from being taken down by NCSoft. They can still be taken down at any time if NCSoft wants to.
I played this back in the day when it dropped. I didn’t even know it was still around, had some good times in this game.
Yeah, its still very alive. Still really fun.
it now has NCsoft approval, so it is legitimately back up and running stronger than ever
I REMEMBER THIS GAME THANK YOU SO MUCH i unlocked something in my brain
as always very good and well put together vid. keep up the good work.
You can swap between hero or villian or in between at any time so all content is available, also you can change the font size. Hero side of the game is brighter villian side is mostly dark.
8 hrs of professional game play and only got level 10. HOLY SMOKES i forgot the grind is real in these old games.
In fairness, that’s if you are first learning, are reading a lot, and don’t use the leveling assistance tools. As an experienced player, I can reach level 10 in a little over an hour, and even less if I use “cheaty” methods.
yeah stuff like the group Death From Below trial, which is always recruiting and even has matchmaking, will level you from 1-10 in like 15 minutes haha
I've been playing this game every day since this video. my best friend and his DnD buddy are enjoying it very much.
That's awesome man I'm glad you guys are enjoying it :D
Cool! Welcome!
The dark cityscape thing is mostly for the villainy side. The hero and Praetoria sides have the cities a lot cleaner and more colorful. There's also more people moving around in those cities.
I played this game for years and years, I have actual watercolor paintings of some of my characters that I commissioned back when I was playing, and I have a folder full of art both commissioned, and random art from the forums as artists had threads where you could post your character for artists to use for practice, etc.
Even have a screenshot of my main character's bio, as an actual published author named Mercedes Lackey a fantasy writer had a thread on the forum offering to redo peoples backstories into a short snippet that fit in the limited bio in game, so mine is by an actual author... who I ended up chatting with as I love cars... the topic came up due to her name, turns out she'd bought her husband a DeTomaso Pantera, his dream car, thanks to her books.
Anyways getting off topic here...
I made so many friends in this game it was heartbreaking when it got closed down, I still miss it, as it's one of those games where combat was just fun, though likely very lacking in animation and graphics nowadays, back then it was my way to relax, before I knew I had ADHD CoH was my way to basically keep my brain busy, just going around fighting mobs, testing new characters with new powers, etc.
I love this game still...
You can still play the game you know. It is better than ever!
One of my fave games of all time. I played in the beta, and was super upset when they announced the closure. (Partially because greedy NCSoft did so because it didnt print money like WoW, even tho it had a stable dedicated fan base that made it enough money). Was super stoked to find the Homecoming server a few years back, and was even more stoked (and surprised) that NCSoft gave it the greenlight to be an official server.
IM so glad you had a great time. Also, the city areas are much more colorful and vibrant if you play as a hero lol, the villains play in a region of the city thats been like, abandoned to the villains, so its understandably derelict. Im always thinking about how almost every zone is some spin on "metropolis" cityscape but theyre all unique in their own ways. If you stick with it, def make a hero or ten and experience that side of things. :)
Welcome to Paragon!
Only ten?
It's the only game where I'm an alt-o-holic.
The shady night club is called Pocket D, it was the hang out place for a lot of people, me included. it is a safe place for both heores and villians to go, and just hang out. And that is where I was, dancing my toons life away when the virtue server was sunset in the original game.... sooo much fun was had. My main was an ice/ice tank, and my build was more like a tank/cc which was really cool concept
Glad you liked it. I like watching these videos of people trying the game for the first time. I have been a player since Beta and love this game.
As a long time player, some thoughts: 1) You aren't limited to being just a villain. You can take a half step up as a villain OR a half step down as a hero and be a Rogue/Vigilante This would give you access to hero AND villain sides and quests. To do this, you can take the slow route and do alignment missions. These come from TIPS you find. The quick way is to see Null the Gull sitting on a truck in Pocket D. 2) The leveling is slow because you were solo and did not buff your XP from the START vendor in Mercy Island. Not saying you should do that, but it's highly worth considering as using the basic table will take you forever to level once you near the 40s. 3) Villains side is like playing in an Island chain version of Gotham City.. Villains own the Rogue Islands so if you think it's going to be bright and cheerful, you're on the wrong side of town. Praetoria (If you were praetorian) and paragon (If you went hero) are mostly bright and sunny.
By the way, if you need to adjust the UI, especially to increase font size, you can do so in the Options menu. It is actually kinda crazy how much you can customize the look and feel of the game through options.
Thanks for trying this out!
My home away from home. I play here on Everlasting, and lead the Welcome Wagon's project, to help new players interested in roleplaying in the game and assist with the RP Workshop's lead by Dimi and Mcspazz. This game holds a very special place in all of our hearts. :)
So, quick correction on 25:00 Null the Gull was originally added at the tail end of COH live, and was kept in the game when Homecoming opened it's doors to the public. Null the Gull can also turn off Group Flight, Group Buffs, and a few other options if you look at his menu in detail.
Oh quick tip for MM pets in combat, set them to defend, they will attack anything that attacks you.
Just a few other tips for new players: You can set a skill to autocast once it's off cooldown by holding cntrl and clicking the skill you want to autocast. This is best used for healing auras, and buffs that are hugely beneficial for group runs.
You can add and change how your toolbars are set as well as move other elements of the UI to fit your own personal comfort for gameplay.
Unfortunately the UI text cannot be bumped up in size, however this is something that's still in development with modernizing, but you can use mods to make the text more readable in the chat windows, and various other elements of the game through modding. The HC forums actually has a modding tool and library open to the public for anyone that wishes to mod their game and change a few elements or sounds, or even appearance of the login and roster screens of the game. (And a few other fun little tweaks too from what I've seen on the mod library with City Modder.)
Additionally, you can create Custom Windows, which allow you to drag and drop skillbuttons, macros, or macro menu's called Popmenu's for a mobile little interface you can move anywhere on your game screen, this can provide more accessibility for those that use macros a lot (*raises hand* I do, for a better emote menu, and a few custom menu's I built over the years since 2019 and yes, they are available on the City Modder library for use.)
Lastly, there are some shorthand terms in COH that are not too commonly seen in other games, so don't be afraid to ask questions, the players of the community are very well versed and helpful to new players, and yes, we have a lot of players that offer XP farms for those that don't want to wait or grind out missions to level their characters up. (Guilty as charged, lol played since live, and joined HC as soon as it was open to the public, soooo yeah, familiar with the arcs and missions, sort of run my own thing with the Architect Entertainment system in the game. You might want to do a video on that sometime, @Waydot, AE is actually flush with player made missions and arcs you might really enjoy.)
I’m a Red-sider (Villain) and population can be sparse. But that is fine, we don’t need pathetic Blue-siders (Heroes) cluttering up our streets. The Rouge Isles can feel bleak but that is the point. A city run by selfish, egotistical villains are not going to care about trash pickups and basic civic management. For me, I like the dirty and gritty feel of the various locations as I feel more villainous. Wait till you get to Spider City (Grandville), the seat of power of Lord Recluse and Arachnos. That place has great atmosphere and vibe to it.
to be fair that's exactly how a villian side would be. dark and dismal with little population. a world where only the strongest survive.
@@7kortos7 There is an early level villain side quest line that is a henchman recruitment competition with other new villains (NPC) for an newly established villain.
"Can't be taken as a serious villain if you don't have henchmen."
It has you cheating, stealing, rig the competition and undermining the other villains as much as they do to you.
Such a great quest line. I love it. You actually feel like a villain in a villain city.
I remember back in the day, there was an internet radio station that would host dance/costume parties on my server. Would run into their characters in game and start a random dance party.
Still going on in a new incarnation! (on Homecoming, at least)😊
Great review of the game from a new players eyes. I remembered testing some of the new player QoL stuff when it was in the open beta. It's mostly some wording on screens, pop up or two, and the jet pack. There's rest is base game when making your character.
Good news is if you're running on high resolutions you can go to the options menu and change the text and UI scaling to be more comfortable. You can also drag any UI element to any location, and sub menus can be detached from their parent completely. For example that map, you can click a little circle on the map window to detach it from the nav compass, allowing you to keep it open in a corner somewhere. That little circle is applicable in lots of places. There is also a small + icon on the power tray that allows you to create new floating power trays of your desired shape and move them anywhere.
The game also supports a pretty broad array of macro commands. For example using /macro TRP "powexeclocation target tar patch" will create a new tray button that casts the tar patch ability on who ever you have targetted, instead of having to use the cursor to manually place it.
If you really enjoy masterminds a lot, Thunderspy server has full pet customization although some animation rigs can be more jank than others.
Yeah. It's an old MMO, it has a ton of UI customization.
Takes a while to figure out though.
This game is fucking goated, will always be my favorite MMO
Your son is SO adorable haha!! Sorry, I just had to say it! Amazing video, thank you SO Much for making this!!! I'm sure it will help anyone who is new to city of heroes, it definitely helped me and I've been playing for 2-3 years!!!
one note about the enhancements on your summoning abilities: they affect your summons stats too, so damage increases the damage of the minion, accuracy increases accuracy etc... and when you hover over the skill or slot, you can see what enhancements they can benefit from (for summons this varies depending on which abilities they have, for other skills, simply based on what they do)
To extend that point, When you start getting deeper into enhancements with invention sets this also opens up some pretty funny interactions. For example a minion with lots of attack abilities can make use of OverWhelming Force to add knock down to ALL of their damage skills just by slotting in one.
Commenting to boost the channel, good narration and audiovisual
One best of mmo still alive as old game still super solid
I would definitely like to see you do a new player video on DC Universe Online. I played that game a lot when I was younger, would like to see how it has changed over the years. Amazing video btw
Damn good video
This game is what I wish dc universe online could be.
Come play the real superhero MMO.
Homecoming is the best server right now. Its very active
I was unfortunate to find out about this game after it canceled and before private servers were a thing. Eager to get started on this as soon as I finish watching your video. Also the Text to voice thing should be solvable with A.I.. I'm Surprised no one has done that yet or maybe the core programming prevents that from happening.
really enjoying this type of videos. its always a pleasure tuning one of this vids in when im on a lunch break ❤
Asheron's Call! It also was a very popular game that has moved to private servers.
I used to be on the dev team for WoW and i can confirm that flying around with our dev tools was way cooler than using even our best looking mounts.
:O jealous
@redcloud16 its not as glamorous as you think. Its just a job like any other
@@coreydopson2030 just been trying to break in to an industry job for 14 years. T-T I know Blizzard wasn't the promised land, especially after all those lawsuits a few years back, but it's still super interesting to come across someone like you in a RUclips comment. What kinds of things did you work on?
@redcloud16 just WoW and Warcraft 3 Reforged... you know the lowest rated game in the history of meta critic. I was but a lowly QA analyst. I didn't really get to do anything that cool or exciting. Jobs fine, people are great for the most part but the people calling the shots make it a really terrible place to work. There is a reason they had to unionize recently. Follow your dream man i know how it felt for me when i first got the job. I too had been trying my entire adult life to work in gaming but please temper your expectations.
@@coreydopson2030 oh im fully tempered. i went to a game school and was burnt the hell out, and have many friends who actually made it into the industry (and several who swore it off and promised never to return). So, ive got a good idea of what its like. SOrry it was so shitty. Glad they unionized. (I worked at Nintendo QA testing for 11 months once may years ago, i know how that is...)
YES YES YES YES YES YES CITY OF HEROES!!!!!!!
the most dated part of this game is the textures. everything else was so far ahead of it's time it still feels great.
I really wanna play this game again.
Wonderful review. One of my all time favorite games.
Stumbled across this and must say I enjoyed your take. I have been playing CoH since the original Beta and allow me assure you that you have barely scratched the surface of the game.
Also, as you get higher level the combat get more fast paced.
Leveling solo can be slow. But, if you are feeling OP you can increase the difficulty on your missions as well and gain more XP. There is a vendor that sells double XP boosts (for free) as well.
Great game I played for the whole game start to end, started playing again when homecoming officially supported
Homecoming is fantastic. The game takes some getting used to if you’re coming from more modern MMOs but once it clicks it’s an experience like no other game out there.
Yes, it does have a bit too much of the grey city scapes, especially on the villain side, but it has a lot of other zones as well. Try a start in Praetorian Earth for a different feel.
But you can travel to the Roman Empire, to the Moon, to Psychedelic space, fight alien invasions, and so, so, so much more.
I agree that the text dialogues and the lack of many cut scenes and voice acting are holding the game back, although there is some of the last content added to the game that does this a lot better.
There is so much content in this game, and so much re-playability because of all the different character choices you can make. This game goes both deep and wide, you have only scratched the surface.
I remember a very long time ago reading a preview of this new upcoming game in a magazine called Computeractive whilst having a poop lol. It sounded amazing and for the next few months I waited for it with baited breath. Then I got my hands on it and it blew me away. I played it up until divorce and beyond. Then I suffered the shit down. Turned to alcohol for a few years until, to my utter delight, it was there again! Still playing to this day. How many other games can do THAT??
Apologies - SHUT down!
I bought this as a kid and my dad couldn’t figure out how to set it up. Not long later I found out the servers were permanently down. I can finally play the dream game from my childhood
would love more videos on city of heroes
Yes, the character creation still amazes me all of these years later.
Thanks for making this. Time for my biannual attempt to get my group of gamer friends to play on Homecoming with me by sending them this video.
The Homecoming server's character creator and gameplay intro are significantly expanded from the initial release in 2004.
The original game was 40 levels and Jack Emmert (Statesman) said it was all that was needed for the game in the beta.
On release a player spent almost 72 hours grinding through the game and got to 40.
Emmert freaked out so huge nerfs, 10 levels were added and Blobbidon the pathetic end game raid was added.
NCSoft killed their entire North American software development group after Garriot ripped them off with Tabula Rasa so sadly even though it was still populated CoH and all of their NA games were shut down...
The city was only grey like that becasue you created a villian and werepolaying in their zones. The hero zones were more vibrant
Initially you could only play heroes. When the City of Villains expansion came out you could now choose to be a villain. With Going Rogue they added the alignment system where you could switch from villain to rogue or hero to vigilante. This allowed you to play on either side. Some content is exclusive to heroes or villains which is why they added Null so you could change alignment quickly. 😅
City of heroes. Wow memories. The radio station the fancy dress comps etc. Omg epic times. And homecoming is amazing
We loved it because you could create your own hero. I used to sit for hours on end creating heroes, then dropping them.
It's worth mentioning that you were doing the Villain zones which are more gray than the Hero areas. Although I always really liked the villain areas myself as a kid though, especially Cap Au Diable and St. Martial. I'm surprised you didn't like Cap, definitely give st martial a look.
Great video!
Great video!
Great Video! Do you know about Champions Online?... That too is quite immersive and character customization is very deep. I just missed out on COH back in the day when DCUO (for PS3) got me into MMORPGs. I went from DCUO to Champions Online and at the time there were hoards of COH players joining Champions Online as COH was being shut down. So I unfortunately never got to play it. I did not know the game still exists out there. I'd love to finally take a crack at it and experience what all the hype was about. So, where do I go to get started?... I did not see any links here for COH game. Hopefully you can provide the link or links?...
Good catch! I’ve added the link to the official homecoming website in the description.
Oh no, there's still the very real possibility that NCSoft will pull the plug, because they can do so when they feel like it, however, it just probably won't happen any time soon (hopefully).
Homecoming has an official license from NCSoft, the company that owns the legal rights to the content. It's as close as you will get to it being back. Still great community.
It's the best because it had no cash shop at all. Everything was unlocked you were not limited on character creation. So it was the best game and no other even came close afterwards.
Still love it! I have over 70 toons on HC, it's as good as it ever was, better in some ways, especially being completely f2p now :).
One of the best nostalgia mmos out there right now - if you like spandex at all and haven't played this yet...what the hell are you waiting for??? ;)
Btw, you really should have started in Atlas City as a hero - much better new player experience! ;)
Also, starting area has a P2W vendor which gives you heaps of freebies and 100% XP boost. Really.
As a PlayStation main, who grow up off of City of Heroes/Villains, and Champions Online on PC. I absolutely loved playing this MMO, and now really wish they would put this on Console. 👍console players would the love this free to play game.
It's a private server for a technically "shut down" game. It'll only ever be on PC
I only got into City of Heroes a year before it closed after having played World of Warcraft for many years.
CoH was so much better, I was devastated when it closed and didn't play any other MMO for a long time.
I'm so happy it is back.
I consider it my favourite game, only Baldur's Gate 3 and Minecraft come close.
Great video but when are we getting that ESO golden Road video?
Hey Waydot. I'm glad you enjoyed your time with the game, but I've gotta say you sort of unintentionally picked the worst possible new player experience. You did villain-side with the outdated tutorials, the least interactive
Archetype for combat, all to solo missions until you got picked up for content you weren't prepared for. And the benefit of soloing is having more time to read and enjoy some of the actually very well-written story arcs, and you didn't even get to do that. If I had a checklist for things I wouldn't want new players to experience, it would be pretty much everything you did, in order.
The main issue I think is trying to play CoX like other MMOs, which you can do and is completely understandable *to* do, but it's not the best experience and doesn't really capture what makes the game great. The social experience of the game is what makes it shine-everything about it is meant to be experienced with other people. The character creator lets you show of your creativity. The missions scale with team sizes, and full eight person teams turn into a chaotic onslaught of explosions, and you level way faster.
If you ever give it another shot, I'd highly recommend going hero side with like a Street Justice Scrapper or Stalker and hopping on a few DFBs (low-level raid) to jump past the first fifteen levels or so. You can even get a free Double XP buff to speed up the process at the P2W vender. If you need help figuring any of this out, just go into General or Help chat and identify yourself as a new player. Someone *will* come to show you the ropes.
Love this game. I play primarily on Cake New Dawn and Thunderspy servers though. I played CoH so obsessively (when I wasn't raiding in EQ1), I rolled up almost two dozen 50s. Don't feel too bad. Even when the game was live, heroes FAR outnumbered villains. The villain side's content was garbage in that it only allowed you to be mischievous, not actually EVIL. If CoV wrote the Joker, he'd be a shoplifter or an armed robber, he wouldn't be...The Joker. And in a world where action combat is the standard (and what most people are familiar with), tab-target combat systems can seem outdated. Then again, one reason why I could never get into Runescape was because of its graphical style so I get it. Different strokes and all that.
Well. Now I’ll be hopping back on my Homecoming account ❤
your videos are awesome. if it was not for you, i wouldn't even grasp that swotr and this game is fun.
Thank you man :) Glad I can help you find games!
This was my favorite game back in the days 😢
Next time turn on the cel shading filter! It looks way better
MY CHILDHOOD I was playing this in elementary school
I remember when my uncle introduced me to this game when I was like 9. I made a buff midget version of Kane from WWE who used fire powers. Can’t recall what his secondary power was.
Unfortunately we didn’t have a PC at my parents house so that was one of 2 times I got to play the game.
I loved my mastermind "Great Deceiver"
Hi waydot!
Yo!
The grayish colors in Rogues Isles are intentional. This represents the demoralized state of a society controlled by supervillains. In contrast, Paragon City (hero side) is mostly saturated colors, representing a city protected by benevolent superheroes.
the dark/depressing kind of vibe is only on the Villain side; over in Paragon City it's much more vibrant. Even when I play villian archetypes, I still go blueside (Hero-side) because of this. The Rogue Isles (redside/Villian side) just feels oppressive while heroside it feels really vibrant, colorful, and captures a sense of wonder
i don't remember exactly offhand how you have to do this--it used to be that you would start your villain in the Rogue Isles always, but then later at like level 20 or so you could flip your alignment, and take that Villian into the blueside as a sort of anti-hero who isn't explicitly a bad guy anymore. I think now it'll let you build Villian ATs from the start blueside.
for any new player I always recommend not starting Redside because of how oppressive it feels in those environments. Atlas Park in Paragon City is the best place to start IMO
overall I just never could really enjoy myself when in the Rogue Isles because the visuals. it was all hobbled together garbage, trash, muted browns and greys--they really did go all out in making the Villian side feel oppressive. It worked.
Music in the game is phenomenal as you mentioned, so are the sound effects. Almost everything about this game was done very well.
Lord knows I don't need another MMO private server to waste my hours with
But shit, here we go again...
Remembering playing in 2019 when they made it public
I hate superheroes and superhero games but you already know I’ll watch cuz it’s waydot!!!!
hate is a strong word for superheros? do you just not like overly hyped things?
Great videos
I really want to play and own this game!
Homecoming server is always active night and day with hundreds op people I play every night and there’s always something to do
Taskforces? Do all villains have standups together each morning? 😂
OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! Are you telling me I can play City of Heroes TODAY??? It was so goood back in time!!!
As an old CoH vet who played it right from release, you actually missed the newer tutorial. Galaxy City is the newest iteration of that 3 choice loading in, added when the game went Free 2 Play. As for the rest: The Villains were the first sold expansion of the game, followed by the Praetorian content (which was designed with a more "shades of gray" type story, and a higher difficulty for experienced players). CoH was what I was playing when I bounced off Vanilla WoW, and colored my perspective on what I felt a good MMO was for many years to come. Just don't try the game Cryptic did as a follow up. Champions Online is a massive dissappointment compared to City of Heroes. And yes, everyone goes hero on Homecoming, the community is much smaller than CoH had when live, and Heroes really did get all the shiny new toys as the game progressed. Also, as an aside, you missed the true cost of dying in the game: XP debt. Instead of taking XP away from you, it would put you 'in debt', and you'd have to pay off that XP debt before you could continue to earn XP. This could have contributed to some of the slowdown you felt in levelling speed, tho not all of it. Soloing is SLOW going in game, but you did choose the right class for it. Until late game, Masterminds can solo stuff almost no one else can.
Please try Mabinogi, it was my favorite mmorpg to play back in the day. The game is also getting an Unreal Engine 5 update which there is a trailer for
The game had, and still has, a great and helpful community. Well, heroside at least.