The very first hero you ever made in the game?

[primeknight]

First Character (& first 50):

Panthera Knight

He was based off a character I created 15 years previously: a half human, half cat warrior, and the closest thing I've seen in comics that could represent him was the character of Tygrus in the Batman: the Animated Series episode: Tyger Tyger.  Panthera was a claws/sr scrapper with super-speed and stealth, which was a wonderful combination for a first character:  I was able to learn the city streets in relative safety, and anything that did see me usually missed their attack thanks to SR.  I learned the entire game though him I created him  back in issue 3 so I get to experience the game before ED and the GDN, which soured me to the game afterwards feeling far less super.  He was the only character I switched sides with and, before I went back to being a hero, he was the only character with whom I completed the Lord Recluse storyline.  He was an awesome powerhouse / speed demon that ruined me for every other character since.  I un-mained him ironically after I was able to finally complete his costume with the beast costume pack and give him that cat head I wished I had years before. (I used various costume pieces to hide his face before the cat head existed).  I think I un-mained him because I changed over time to the point I wanted to play myself, but in superhero form.  That being said I still began the incarnate process with him and made sure to log back into him on the last day where I left him, in his original starting zone standing guard in Galaxy City (which still existed sans Back Alley Brawler)  So I walked Panthera to the trainer pedestal to take over, there has to be a trainer in every zone right, including a dead one    I took several screenshots that last day and almost cried when I said goodbye to my friend. 


Second character (& second 50):

Prime Knight

He was also based of a character I created 15 years previously, and he was also the character I basically purchased City of Heroes for: I wanted a character I could fly around a city with.  He started off as what I wanted or wished jedi were capable off.  I searched the forums trying to find the best fit for a jedi-ish telekinetic telepath with flight, that was something different from my claws/sr scrapper.  And I ended up with a mind/kin controller.  He started off troubled at first as I had to basically relearn how to play the game with this completely new at/character, but got into a groove with him.  A whole new city opened up to me with all these new ways to tackle the same problems.  And even the flight vs superspeed literally opened the skies to me, and I saw the city from a new perspective.  Prime was the only other character I created that was in the same speed league as Panthera thanks to siphon speed, which also doubled as the perfect power to make hover as fast as fly. Prime began to really shine in the level 30s+ and confuse/mass confuse became his all star powers.  Around the time ED and the GDN hit, the dev's also nerfed area confuses basically halving the hold duration and doubling the recharge time, so I took hasten as his very next power.  (Thankfully mass hypnosis and mass confusion were spared total domination's fate) Prime was my second main until I un-mained Panthera when I started to think of Prime as me, but with superpowers and he really began to shine.  I soon came to realize how super powered my controller could be and once I started him down his IO'ed incarnate path he became: Legen; wait for it:
dary.  He really did become a god next to all the other heroes I previously played as.  Prime is shown in my avatar image with this dog giving everyone a bow.  That's right, I'm crazy enough to mess with the screenshots and character animations to catch a perfectly timed dual bow.

Panthera and Prime both had every anniversary badge sans  the six year badge during the time when my main computer had died.  They're both dearly missed.

Thanks to Codewalker, Icon has given them both new life to some degree and every time I feel like checking out the city again, I recreate Prime and fly around his old home. 

[TriNitroToluene]

Long Shock..........Electric/Electric Blaster.  I learned to embrace the sapping lifestyle on the guy.  He became my first 50 a little over a year later.  I didn't team much when I first started, so it took a little while, plus a mild case of altitis delayed the penultimate level.  He ended up as a 50 +3.

[SARobb]

My first Hero and 50... Kinetagirl Fire/Kin Controller.  Always had the most fun on that Character, she was just so fast at the end I almost had problems controlling her at times. Stess the almost

[cohRock]

My first hero was a stone/stone tank -- Ochre Rook.  I named him after an earlier character (villain) in Ultima Online, Ochre Muerte.  OM was an evil necromancer, so I did not want to use the name in its entirety.  The "Rook" occurred in the character creator, when the rook symbol was used as his chest emblem.

A really neat thing was how his ochre costume ended up matching with the stone and brimstone armors.  I had no idea what those things would look like, and when he had leveled up enough to get them, it was like, "wow!".

[MindBlender]

Stone/SS Tank.  Found this to be a bad combination and he just looked like a fat kid fighting on the playground.    Made level 10 then made my first 50 MindBlender Emp/sonic defender.

[Harlequin565]

Voss, my Energy/Energy blaster. I wanted the name Powerbolt (taken), Powerblast (taken) and then I gave up and went for something safe. I shot a few things in Atlas park to hit level 6 then I got hover. That was me. Sold. (Even though I did think it was extremely slow)

Then I joined a Perez street-sweeping team and remember the xp bar just filling and filling. It was so awesome being on a team. After slotting my main attacks for Acc/Dam/End/Rech, I was left wondering why anyone would slot more than 4 slots in a power until someone said I could have more than one of a single enhancement type. I quit the team intending to go back to the trainer and get 1Acc, 3Dam for my four slots then realised I was lost in the park. Lots of high level CoT, me - a blaster. No roof to hover through, no Vidiot Map overlay. I think it took me almost 2 hours to stealth and carefully pick my way out. Never been so grateful to see that blue sky over Perez. (The thought of "hosping" out never occurred to me)

Voss got remade as Powerslinger shortly thereafter (never got used to the name) and enjoyed many years in CoX. Incarnate, purpled out, almost soft-capped for Ranged/Smashing/Lethal. She was awesome. Finally, in August last year, I scooped one of the Kirby auras in the giveaway on the forums. It was after walking out of Icon with my new costume replete with aura that I saw the broadcast messages. No more Cox. Such a sad day. She was there at the beginning, and she was there at the end. I went back to Perez to take it out on some CoT for old times sake.

[Turjan]

Sword of Albion, a Broadsword/Regen Scrapper.

Funny thing was, I didn't make him on my account...

This was in 2004, not long after CoH came out. I live in England, and an American friend had come over to stay awhile - and he'd brought City of Heroes with him to show me. We installed it on my PC and I was instantly smitten.

I created Sword of Albion and played him until my friend returned to the States, then intermittently with his permission until CoH was released in Europe, whereupon I immediately snagged a Euro copy of the game and remade Sword of Albion. Original Sword of Albion remained in mothballs right until the game's twilight.

These screenshots show my friend playing the original toon on the right (the tall version of Albion), whereas I'm playing a dual blade version that I made specifically to meet up with the original character in September last year, shortly after the sunset announcement.



As he said, he couldn't bring himself to delete original Albion, but he couldn't bring himself to play the character either, because it was my creation. So we agreed to leave him just as he was (unchanged, and badly in need of a respec since about Issue 2) until the sunset.

--------------------

I was going to post this a few days ago, but I thought "Ah, I don't have the time just now, I'll do it later". But sometimes time runs out.

It's very painful for me to post this now because my American friend, playing the Albion on the right there? He died last night.

He'd been battling with a rare blood condition all the years I knew him, and this year that condition worsened. In April he went into hospital and underwent radiation, chemotherapy, and then finally a bone marrow transplant. And things were looking good - his blood profile was returning to normal levels. But because of the transplant, his immune system was in a weakened state, and he contracted pneumonia. So ironically it wasn't even his old blood nemesis that got him in the end, it was the pneumonia.

And now I'm left thinking that if City of Heroes is ever resurrected or reborn, my friend will not see it. He introduced me to the game, kindly let me play on his copy until European CoH was released, then when the servers went global, we teamed together many times on many characters...and now he's gone, and all I have left are memories and screenshots.

When I get to play City of Heroes again, in whatever form that may take, I will honour those memories by recreating some of his characters. Just as he looked after Sword of Albion for me, I will tend to Kama Silverleaf, Mormegil, Dr. Deimos, Maeglyn, Davok Telenna, and Sinea Sapiens.

Rest in peace old friend - your dreams will live on.

[FourSpeed]

@Turjan: I'm very sorry to hear about your friend - may he rest in peace and may you always cherish the fun you had.


As for me, like several others here, my first character was my namesake (FourSpeed - elec/elec Blaster) that I started in the original open-beta and played all the way through to sunset.

He reached L50 sometime in I-3, and semi-retired out to the Shadow Shard, occasionally running the repeatables and the kora-fruit mission.

When dual builds came out, I retained his original (scary) build complete with SO's, and kitted him out "properly" on his second build - with great success. 

When Incarnate Powers came out, he extended his power immensely.

While I made many, many more characters over the years, I always enjoyed playing him. I can't recall the exact number now, but I think I amassed ~1500+ hours playing him, from the very beginning until the very end.


Regards,
4

[Ultraamann]

<----- that guy over there

Ultraamann, Inv/SS tanker.  First toon, it didn't even dawn on me that I could make another toon until after I'd already hit 50 with him.  His costume there is exactly as I rolled it that very first time out of the gate, with only the cape added later on.  Nothing else I rolled thereafter ever felt as super, fun, but just not the same.  I do miss that particular alter ego.

[johnrobey]

My very first CoX character and hero ever made was on my friend's account (and presumably would still be there were it not for a certain NCSad decision.)  Now, he and I are both middle aged guys in our 50s but we've been gaming buddies and friends since our late teens.  He is a completely Out and self confessed heterosexual, which has never bother me, nor has he ever found it difficult to accept me for who I am despite my homosexual orientation.  Sorry for all the preamble, but this was LONG before the days of Marriage Equality and only a few years after the APA decided being gay was no longer a mental illness way back in the 1970s.  Anyhow, he invited me over to his place to check out this nifty computer game he thought I might like called City of Heroes.   He'd been playing it off and on since the first week it was out, and he raved about how cool it was, especially the character/costume designer.  Sooooo, after dinner he shows me a number of his characters, many of which were highly whimsical and/or silly and often involved at least one or more level of joke and/or pun in design and execution.

He says, now let's build you a character and you can play this on your computer at home while I'm at work.  Man, I see now only in hindsight that he was like that scary drug pusher who says, look it's free and on me, just try it!  I did, and I was hooked but I am getting ahead of myself.  So all the while we're talking about gaming and in particular CoH, and my MMORPG experience is limited to watching friends play UO, WoW, EverCrackQuest, and even playing a few hours of same but not feeling terribly drawn in and eager to start computer gaming.  (Besides back then I was active in LARP and tabletop gaming so why would I want to also game online?)  So, Mark tells me about what archetypes he likes in CoH and which ones he thinks might be easiest to learn since I'm a computer gaming novice, regardless of how seasoned I am as a gamer in general, and we decide to create an Ice Control/Kinetics Controller together.  So we are flipping thru the costume pieces when I am surprised (read: amazed!) to discover the pierced nipple option with leather straps.  Oo la la!  How amusing and potentially kinky in a super hero genre game, PG-Teen, where one can make traditional Golden and Silver Age comic book hero costumes very easily, as well as something that looks like it's from the pages of Gay Men's comix and LOL it's too funny!  So we go with pierced nipple, tall spikey blue hair, that rather funny face #1 which is a bit sardonic and laughing, sleek, shiny-hiney blue pants, a hot pink belt (arrow pointing up) and matching hot pink "Wings" headdress and boots and gloves voila!  The Gay Avenger is born!!  (Sorry, I don't recall which server, probably Infinity.)   I am whooping with delight simply street sweeping hellions in AP!  Two weeks later I had my own account, almost never logged into his any more, and we created our own SG on Infinity and the beginning of my serious CoH addiction, i mean, love affair was launched, under Issue 15, with game and my involvement getting better and better until the dread day we each recall.  Thanks for listening.  I have fun reminiscing about this stuff, but of course I don't have any screenies of the Gay Avenger.  While Mark never deleted any of my new nascent creations, he also didn't play them himself.  Theoretically he can screenshot them, but I'm not gonna ask him to bother.  Tanks for the memories, Titan Network forums!  Stay SUPER and stay AWESOME!!!!!   

[SerialBeggar]

Never been so grateful to see that blue sky over Perez.

You're not alone with that thought.

[Pinnacle Blue]

Well, my very first character was probably a grav/forcefield character I made on a friend's account back during Issue 1.  (Can you tell I had no idea what I was doing with that combo?)  I lost touch with said friend for quite a while after Hurricane Katrina, though, so I stopped playing until 2010, when I just wanted to fly around Paragon City again.  So I signed up for the free trial and re-rolled another character I had played on the friend's account.

That re-rolled character would be the very embarrassingly-named Blue Dude 72 (later changed to Blue Blasts-- I never used AOL, but that name was pretty AOLish), an elec^3 blaster with Ion Judgement and other Incarnate powers.  I was still calling him my main until I realized I was playing my Kheldians much more often.  He is (that's right: is, not was) in dire need of a respec, but while I played him he did okay nuking and sapping.

[Mazz vs The World]

Ahhh the memories!!! My very first character was a Mind/Storm troller. When I made her I thougth it was the perfect combination of Jean Grey and Storm, two of my favorite Marvel characters. It was so fun and I had her all the way to the very end. Hopefully one day we will meet again!

[Super Firebug]

I don't know if I tried one or two, and then deleted them, but the first toon I kept was a fire/fire blaster - by this very name, actually - on Protector. Being my first one, I ended up messing him up over time; I could still play him, of course (they did a good job of making toons nearly idiot-proof, even for total MMO newbs like me), but I did have to respec him a couple of times as I learned how to grow a toon. Visually, he was about as tall as he could be (I had no idea that I had made him taller than average), dressed in black medieval armor with orange flames on the limbs, topped by the military helmet that had the antenna on the side, also black, and wearing a black, LaForge-type eye visor with orange slit lens.

--Super Firebug

Incoming munitions always have the right of way.

[blackjak]

Like a lot of people my first was my namesake (I took the name A:because BlackJack was taken (COH forums as well, hence my name here) and B: he is from my "stable" of characters I made a loooong time ago and I've always liked him and his team). His costume is not a direct rip of Union Jack (see my avatar), but the idea obviously came from him (he is more spiderman-ish and less handgun-y) Here he is from the game:

[crashpositron]

<-- that guy/namesake right over there.  He was my first toon and first MMORPG character.  Didn't get what tanks were for.  Crash had six Damage SOs in his attacks and no Accuracy.  I was really frustrated by his lack of damage and started my loooong descent into Altitis (I had 110 toons over the years).  After the ED update, I started to understand the idea around the Enhancements and did better.  He is also the last toon standing in front of Liberty when the world ended . . . .

[Felderburg]

My very first character was a Tanker, probably Inv/SS (I don't remember). The Dark Hunter was based on a character I had come up before I had heard of CoH that used what would be dark powers; since those were lacking from the Tankers, I just gave him a black armored suit and called it done. While he would later be remade into a Dark/Dark Brute, Dark Hunter proved to me in about five minutes that I don't like Tankers much, so I rolled my "real" first character, The Holy Flame. Based on a character whose story was related to the Dark Hunter's, she was a Fire/Eng Blaster, and I LOVED it. She was my first 50, and the character I went out on.

[PunkusJR]

Well that depends. I first had a shared account. On that shared account I made an invincibility energy melee tank. Never got him to fifty. When I got my own I think I made a scrapper first, but I deleted him in favor for a dual pistol ice blaster, who I fell in love with.

[Brightfires]

The original Brightfires... She was a Defender of some flavor (Rad, I think?), made on FCM's account about three days after the game went live. I played with her for a couple of hours and then abandoned her. I decided that City in the Issue 1 era just wasn't my thing. She managed to make it to level 2 or 3, I think.

It took a few years and a lot of changes to the game for me to come back and try it again, that time with my own account and a guy named Palrah (my WP/DB tank). I liked the game, and him, enough to stick around the second time... Pally ended up being my first 50, and remained my blue-side main until the servers went down. He was the last character I played, the last one I logged off and one of the two or three I still miss most. 

As for Bright, she was eventually recreated as a Fire Controller. She made it into the late 30's. In the end, I just ran out of time and she was left unfinished. 

[Eoraptor]

Fug Li. An ice/axe tanker. eight feet tall, green, with chitinous skin and face and giant head spikes and mangler gears. I loved it the day I logged into atlas, and someone local'ed "never has a character been so aptly named"