How did you hear about CO?

jaazaniah1 · March 2014

I often hear how poorly CO is advertized/marketed, which, to me, is unfortunate, especially given the surge in super hero movies the last few years. So, I'm curious how people first heard of this game. For me it was serendipitous. I was cleaning cupboards and ran across my stash of old Champions PnP materials. That brought back memories, so I Goggled on it to see what had ever happened to the system (still one of my favorite RPGs of all time). That let me to CO 1000+ days ago.

jonsills · March 2014

Way back in the day, back before F2P, I saw an ad for it somewhere - don't recall where - advertising a free weekend. Warmed by memories of playing the PnP in college, I signed up, and was terribly disappointed - the tutorial was massively confusing, and it defaulted to half-graphics with no explanation of how to fix that so it looked terrible.

A year or so later, when the game was going F2P, there was a sidebar ad on Facebook. I remembered how badly my first attempt had gone, but figured it was free, so why not? It worked out much better the second time - character creation with Freeforms isn't a very good idea when you only know the PnP, because they're nothing alike. It was better to ease into it with Archetypes, and learn from there how the powers worked. My first toon, a Behemoth named Meteor, is long since consigned to the bit bucket, but it was interesting and informative...

scorpagor · March 2014

I was bored of playing my primary MMO at the time (don't remember which one) so I browsed the MMO hut (which has a decent overview of all the free MMOs in existence) to see what else there was out there. That's how I stumbled upon CO, about a month after the game went F2P.

I don't recall ever seeing a single advertisement for CO anywhere, online or offline.

jadetora · March 2014

scorpagor wrote: »

I was bored of playing my primary MMO at the time (don't remember which one) so I browsed the MMO hut (which has a decent overview of all the free MMOs in existence) to see what else there was out there. That's how I stumbled upon CO, about a month after the game went F2P.

I don't recall ever seeing a single advertisement for CO anywhere, online or offline.

That's because they don't really advertise.

Kinda.. counter-productive to the business aim, but whatever.. Cryptic's never really been known for their stellar or intelligent decisions or business sense.

drgmstr · March 2014

I was playing mostly PWE games at the time (PWI, JD, Forsaken World, etc.) and was starting to get into one of those phases to try something new. I went to MMOHut.com and saw both CO and STO there. While I am a Star trek fan, CO interested me the most for being a super hero MMO, which I never tried prior. So I went ahead and tried it, loved it, and then tried STO, loved it and became my two newest games to play. I don't think I've touched other PWE titles in a long time since then.

sterga · March 2014

My roommate told me about the beta and asked if he could use my computer to play it since his was a PoS. Super exciting, I know.

Unknown · March 2014

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kallethen · March 2014

A little while after CO went F2P, I decided to try it out.

For YEARS I had been a regular player and DM on a Neverwinter Nights server and had finally gotten a bit burnt out from that. I needed a change and so poked at various F2P MMOs because I didn't really have extra cash to spend on a sub. They all felt the same though, lots of generic fantasy MMOs. All where you start off being told that you are the special hero (all hundred thousands of us are special chosen ones, eh?).

So then I decided to try CO, as I had seen some ads then (yes, there used to be CO ads). It was a breath of fresh air, honestly. First, it wasn't a fantasy setting (or fantasy-disguised-as-scifi). And the ability to design the look of your hero really interested me. The combat didn't feel as generic as other MMOs (faster paced, and the energy points being a fluid pool you use and refresh instead of mana/magic points being more of a constantly drained battery). And I wasn't told off the bat that I'm the "chosen one!" I mean, in CO the story missions really do a good job of making you feel like you start off as only a small time hero who progressively does bigger and better things to make a name for himself.

I've stuck on CO since, and have been a long time gold sub.

itsbrou · March 2014

I was looking for something fresh in 2008 after having played CoH. I was disappointed in the current issue release at the time. It was just what I needed.

jerax1011 · March 2014

I was bored of WoW and my bf at the time had started playing DCUO. I liked the idea but googled other superhero games and ran across Champs. Made an account since it was free (this was late 2011) and after seeing the character creator I was hooked.

jadetora · March 2014

someguywhoplaysgames wrote: »

I was looking for something fresh in 2008 after having played CoH. I was disappointed in the current issue release at the time. It was just what I needed.

Yep. This is how We found it.

Was playing CoH, heard about CO, and decided to give it a try because at the time We were burnt out with CoH/CoV and NCSoft in general. Turned out to be a pretty good move, lo and behold a few years later, CoH/CoV gets canned abruptly. Makes us really glad We didn't waste more time there making new characters and working to earn new stuff.

championshewolf · March 2014

someguywhoplaysgames wrote: »

I was looking for something fresh in 2008 after having played CoH. I was disappointed in the current issue release at the time. It was just what I needed.

I had heard about it in CoH to. I was disappointed in the lack of development towards the villain side of that game, personally, signed up to the forums when they first opened.

bulgarex · March 2014

I'm a long-time PnP Champions gamer, and frequenter of the online discussion forums of Hero Games, publishers of Champions. The Cryptic IP purchase was huge news to the Hero gaming community and heavily publicized and discussed on their website for months, long before the actual launch of the game.

Sadly, PnP Champs fans make up only a small fraction of the player base needed to float a MMORPG. And not all of them want to play Champions Online.

flechus · March 2014

When the game went Free to play there was a thread inviting poeple to join on that Image board people were not supposed to mention back in the day...

Nowadyas its kinda an irrelevant place

bluhman · March 2014

Towards the end of my playing of CoH (around early 2008 I think?) there were discussions going on about Champions and its development, and how it was going to be silly. Lots of people talking about it were disdainful at the time, and I still remember how the first 4 character bios featured on the promotional site were Defender, Shadow Destroyer, Justiciar, and Menton. I thought Defender was a goofy callback to the defender role in CoH, which is a ranged/support unit (i.e. not at all what Defender is), mainly because Defender's color was blue, and the defender CoH role had a predominantly blue icon.

I screwed off for a couple years as I played and subsequently was super disappointed in SPORE, entered college, and did a bunch of gaming catch-up through Steam by playing stuff like HL2, Portal, and TF2. During that time, I used some searching through Steam to try and find a game that had highly-customizable characters/stuff, and ended up finding CO around March 2010 by chance. I said "Oh, hey, it's that superhero game that I heard about like 2 years back, wonder what it's like?" And tried it out. I was instantly confused by why my energy builder was a toggle/how Thundering Kicks didn't have a cooldown. Got out of the tutorial, activated my first travel power (Acrobatics, which strongly reminded me how my Scrapper used a combination of Fitness powers/Combat Jumping/Swiftness to travel around), and really the rest was history.

bravehoptoad · March 2014

I was also a PnP Champions guy. Used to hang around the PnP forums before CO Online was even a thought. So I still get grumpy that CO Online doesn't more closely mimic the original, which had even a better character creation system.

I thought Defender was a goofy callback to the defender role in CoH, which is a ranged/support unit (i.e. not at all what Defender is), mainly because Defender's color was blue, and the defender CoH role had a predominantly blue icon.

No, Defender dates back to...what?...the mid 80s. All of his super group do, except Kinetik, who was a more recent (90s?) addition.

bulgarex · March 2014

bravehoptoad wrote: »

No, Defender dates back to...what?...the mid 80s. All of his super group do, except Kinetik, who was a more recent (90s?) addition.

Defender first appeared in 1989, as part of the Champions example character team for the Fourth Edition of the Champions/HERO System rule- and campaign-book. His armor looked different, but the character's background was almost identical. That incarnation of the Champions team also featured an alien strongman (Obsidian, a giant black-skinned prince), a female mystic called Solitaire (actually something of a mystic/mentalist hybrid), and a flying female energy-projector known as Quantum (African-American and pugnacious). The team's detective was Jaguar, an Hispanic were-jaguar. There was also Seeker, the infamous shirtless Australian swashbuckling ninja.

The current team debuted in 2002 for Champions Fifth Edition, except that Nighthawk was a full member and Kinetik a reservist.

xcaligax · March 2014

I was flying through the Beta Quadrant on Caliga, fighting an entire Klingon fleet that arrogantly thought they could imprison me. Now all that's left there is a graveyard of asteroids and ship debris. Anywho, before I beat the death the last of the Commander's of that fleet, he said something with his dying breath, I believe it was....

"You just wait until those Gadroon on Earth take over that planet!"

And so I ended his life rather brutally. But nevertheless, the information bothered me. And I do hate Gadroon anyway. So I jetted myself at top speed toward the Planet Earth...

........

That's how I dreamed it should of happened anyway.

I saw an advertisement. I clicked it. Now I'm here. :biggrin:

flyingfinn · March 2014

I saw an add about Marvel Universe Online. (Notice the release date: Released on Dec 31, 2098....)
And here we are.

ashensnow · March 2014

I had been watching for a Champions computer game since the Hero Games guys had been saying something was in the works since back in the late 80's/early 90's. A friend who does a lot of alpha/beta testing ended up in CO, knew about my interest in Champions, and mentioned it to me. I bought a copy of COH/COV Architect Edition to see what the company developing Champions had done previously. I did not particularly care for COH but decided to give CO a shot anyway.

cyrone · March 2014

First heard about this game in early 2008, signed up to the forums, dropped a Beta test sign up, went on deployment to Afghanistan and forgot all about CO. Got the Beta invite that December, joined the Beta that following January and have been here since. Though, I don't know for how much longer.

rianfrost · March 2014

was playing city of heroes, And heard about it. figured that I like the superhero subgenre, i'd give it a look. got in on late CB and lifetimed because i was happy with how coh grew with new zones, new powersets and advancing storyline, and figured co would grow in the same fashion. Logged in occasionally when new costume sets would come out to mess with the creator and then log off and play coh, then became a fulltime resident the november before last.

iceih03 · March 2014

In 2009 I bought GuildWars, the game had a CoX trial key, after playing the trial I liked the game concept, but I did not felt comfortable with the game which looked poor compared to SWG (even after NGE), besides the combat was slow and graphics looked old. As I liked the concept, I just googled for another superhero mmo and found CO which was going to launch that year. So instead of buying CoX I signed for CO beta. After playing the beta I liked it so match that I pre-ordered CO and got a Lifetime since day 1.

chaelk · March 2014

had friends who had been playing since beta. started playing when I had a computer again. Haven't stopped.

jaazaniah1 · March 2014

Wow, after deploying to Afghanistan I'd think nothing PWE could do would throw you. The problems with PFF must really stick in the craw!

cyrone wrote: »

First heard about this game in early 2008, signed up to the forums, dropped a Beta test sign up, went on deployment to Afghanistan and forgot all about CO. Got the Beta invite that December, joined the Beta that following January and have been here since. Though, I don't know for how much longer.

chuckwolf · March 2014

I saw the box for the game at Gamestop, and bought it in early 2010

spiderdude4 · March 2014

Well. DCUO was going through a bad quiet phase when it came to their RP environment. I got bored after a while and decided to find another game to play. I looked up Super Hero MMOs for the hell of it and ran into MMO Hut's page on CO. I decided to try it out since it was free and I've been here since 2011 :cool: lifetime account and all!

nieves · March 2014

How did I hear about Champions Online? From Hero Games, the creators of Champions, the super Roleplaying Game! Where else???

cheelangho · March 2014

The whole story? i've been playing MMO's since 2009, started with certain browser MMO about Runes that filter won't let me call by name and pretty much was the only MMO i kept on playing, and while i tried other free MMO's back then (both client and browser based), none kept me interested as much as that one.

I'm also an anime fan, and after watching Sword Art Online (a series about a virtual reality MMORPG) i wanted to try an action MMO, my first option was TERA, but since my laptop specs wouldn't let me run it, i started to look for alternatives, then i found about RaiderZ and made a PWI account to try it. I didn't like the game, and was about to cancel my account, when i thought it would be a good idea to have a look at the other PWI games before quitting, when i stumbled upon this on March last year aaand i'm still here, on my first year playing CO :biggrin:

jennymachx · March 2014

I first heard about the game during my year playing CoX in '08. At first I dismissed it as some CoX wannabe but towards the end of my year I started showing more interest in it having been dissatisfied with the direction Paragon studios was taking with CoX with the introduction of Mission Architect and how it helped degenerate the community into constant fights over the morals of it being used for powerlevelling and farming.

By that time I was already burnt out from CoX and was prepared to give CO a try. I pre-ordered the digital release, took a leap of faith in getting a LTS and the rest is history.

Unknown · March 2014

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nepht · March 2014

Was talking with other CoX players moaning about how Paragon was fudging up the powerbar someone mentioned hey Cryptic has ANOTHER super mmo and this one has fingers.

Fingers people...FINGERS /o/

Well that was it we packed our bags and waved CoX bye bye

championshewolf · March 2014

nepht wrote: »

Was talking with other CoX players moaning about how Paragon was fudging up the powerbar someone mentioned hey Cryptic has ANOTHER super mmo and this one has fingers.

Fingers people...FINGERS /o/

Well that was it we packed our bags and waved CoX bye bye

Fingers and Toes. Can't forget the toes either.

decorumfriends · March 2014

I heard about it on the City of Heroes boards as well. Then later our SG got invited to the "beta". Lucky for me this place was still around when CoX went down, because after that horrible experience (it wasn't even close to being ready for beta testing), I never wanted to come here again.

malvou · March 2014

Youtube and the old Artificial Life Injector glitch. I always wanted a game where I can be an enormous titan of a character and wreck havoc.

Oh, and CoX. Remember people complaining about Champs while flying around bored in Cap au Diable

iamrune · March 2014

I heard about the game on the day of it's official announcement, somewhat by chance from net surfing, but I was a long time CoX player already and had also played the Champions Pen & Paper RPG for decades, so I immediately signed up in March of 2008. I was one of the people that signed up an account on the first day the website went live to the public!

I was invited into the late Alpha in Sept. of 08, a year before live launch and stuck through the Beta to live. Basically been here ever since.

lafury001200 · March 2014

Playing COH and in the the background my tv was playing an interview between Morgan Webb and what I think was likely a dev. At any rate, they showed a swinging character that used dual pistols.

Sold right then and there.

jadetora · March 2014

decorumfriends wrote: »

I heard about it on the City of Heroes boards as well. Then later our SG got invited to the "beta". Lucky for me this place was still around when CoX went down, because after that horrible experience (it wasn't even close to being ready for beta testing), I never wanted to come here again.

Yeah. This game's beta was beyond horrible, lol.

quasimojo1 · March 2014

Friend worked for Cryptic and I'd appreciated the original tabletop RPG.

aceretriever · March 2014

If I remember correctly, I heard about it from G4 back when CO was still under development.

joybuzzerx · March 2014

Heard about it like many others. Through CoH. Got the LTS when it was first made available, figuring it'd pay for itself and I had played it in one of the betas.

Didn't play it regularly until CoH shut down though. First day nerf made me hesitate and I always prefered CoH's more comic book looking art style versus CO's Saturday morning cartoon art style, though it's grown on me.

meedacthunist · March 2014

Someone introduced me to DCUO.
Liked the gameplay, but limited character creation and terrible UI killed the game for me. At least back then.

So, I googled for other superhero mmos. I knew about CoX for a some time, but CO was something new.

Still, tried CoX before. Well, dated graphics weren't the problem. I was used to old looking games. Slow gameplay and recharges were.

Finally, tried CO. The game looked and played better than CoX, especially when I learned to ignore some of its silliness.

p0temk1n · March 2014

PCGamer magazine did a whole article about it way back when. It looked neat, but I didn't play MMO's at the time and it kind of slipped under my radar.

After I got a steady job, I decided to look into it, and here I am.

kallethen · March 2014

meedacthunist wrote: »

Still, tried CoX before. Well, dated graphics weren't the problem. I was used to old looking games. Slow gameplay and recharges were.

This was my same impression when I tried CoX after it went F2P. Guess I got too used to CO's more dynamic combat.

jadetora · March 2014

kallethen wrote: »

This was my same impression when I tried CoX after it went F2P. Guess I got too used to CO's more dynamic combat.

We always felt in spite of having played CoH/CoV from its beta, that the combat and game-play itself actually sucked. The story was spectacular, the game itself.. not so much..

Also, as a point.. not saying you can't, but We really don't call it CoX because.. say it out loud, just say; "I miss CoX.," yeaaah. It's like people saying they miss "the D."

We get a bit of an immature giggle out of that every time someone calls it that.

bluhman · March 2014

meedacthunist wrote: »

Still, tried CoX before. Well, dated graphics weren't the problem. I was used to old looking games. Slow gameplay and recharges were.

Real story, after playing CO for a while, I decided I'd go back and try CoX's f2p. I literally could not play it because of the gameplay pace shift.

the overstimulus of discovering power animations and trying to get used to weird superjumps again also were a factor maybe.

artmanpwe · March 2014

For me it was E3 coverage on G4. Cryptic had a trailer video prepped for E3 and G4 aired it. I was familiar/fan of Champions from the Hero Games rulebooks (though we never actually played in the Champions universe proper). I followed it from that point on. I didn't get into beta, but I joined the first week or so after launch.

Interestingly enough, this is similar to how I found out about The Secret World. They had some great teaser vids on G4 (though I'm not sure if those were E3 related).

Edit: Alas, G4TV is dead and gone.

sistersilicon · March 2014

I was a long-time CoH vet who didn't really want to get into CO after the whole Fight Club thing. (Yeah, I'll gladly hold a grudge against a company.) Then the friend who got me into the CoH beta in the first place told me CO turned out better than he expected, and I should at least give it a try. Dammit, Jack, you pulled me back in.

(It should be noted that said friend jumped ship for STO right away, max-leveled one Fed and one Klingon, and hasn't been seen in a Cryptic game since.)

bluhman wrote: »

Real story, after playing CO for a while, I decided I'd go back and try CoX's f2p. I literally could not play it because of the gameplay pace shift.

Word. I had forgotten that Paragon was the last holdout of the Out-Of-Combat Regen Should Be Painful school of MMO design. "I'm not moving, there's not a mob for yards, why is my HP regen ticking at 1 per second-- oh, that's right. I'm expected to pop greenies like a shortstop on a 12-game road trip."

avianos · March 2014

from YouTube, I was Subscibed to a MMO Review channel called MMOhuts, 3 yeas ago

When CO became Free-to-Play MMOhuts made 2 First Look Videos on the game, I got really interest because I had been searching for a NON-KOREAN, fantasy and fully Action-game with CHARACTER COSTUMIZATION because I got sick of being Limited,

All the previous MMO games left me really disappointed
(I hate Lineage 2, Rappelz is Griddy fest, Allods was BORING and Slow, Dofous/wakfu is way too much anime and PAY-TO-UNLOCK-THE-MAP)

I heard that CO has As great character costumization as City of Heroes

So anyway, I didn't start playing instantly after discovering the game though
I showed the video review of the game to a Friend of Mine
He started playing FIRST and then he pulled me into it! :biggrin:

So... If it wasn't from my Friend I WOULDN'T have dowload the game client despite being the one who found it... because Procrastination

my friend may Stop playing CO but I still play it :U

thatcursedwolf · March 2014

I had recently gotten into CoH recently when CO came out but I was on a Mac laptop that I didn't have room to squeeze Windows into so I didn't pay much attention to it.

Then NCSoft [cursed be] felt their title of MMO killer was in jeopardy so CO was the next logical game to go to. It still took three tries to clear the CoH/CO uncanny valley.

deadman20 · March 2014

For me, it came up in the last conversation between me and some of my old friends a few years back. Of all the random chances I had to take, looking Champions up was probably the one that has had the most effect on me. I'm torn, but between my shooter roots and my desire to create and customize the way I want, I think customization will win out until I create a game of my own with the best of both worlds.

How did you hear about CO?

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