City of Heroes: Rolesnoring

I might need a time-out.

For the first time since 3rd September 2005, I'm finding it difficult to log into City of Heroes and actually have fun.

To be quite honest, this bothers me more than it perhaps should, but the fact of the matter is that until very recently (towards the end of last year) I was constantly excited about logging in to the game.

For the first several months, it was all about levelling up my main, Shadowe. It was a new game (to me), my first ever MMO, and I was enjoying PuGs and just bimbling around putting the smackdown on every bad guy I could find.

Then I decided to try and mix in my other passion - roleplaying. I'd never RPd online before. I was a strictly Pen and Paper guy.

Shadowe is a character that I originally created back in 1999/2000. Perhaps unfortunately, perhaps fortunately, I was in a really bad state back then. I won't bore you with all the details, but the term "EPIC FAIL" pretty much describes what my life was like, with the sole exception of my girlfriend (now wife). I'd managed to scrape together enough cash to support my RP habit, though, and had managed to get my hands on a copy of the 2nd Edition of the DC Heroes RPG. Nice system, really, as long as you don't try to read too much into the character stats.

Anyway, I created a hero. Richard Huntington, scientist extraordinaire. Sort of a cross between Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark - more money than God, genius intellect, high-tech - and created a backstory (a slight twist on the traditional "radiation accident") to cover the powers I wanted. I simultaneously created his sister, Samantha, and an enemy. Cool. But no one to play with.

That original write up for Shadowe is currently languishing in my DC Heroes RPG box, which is on the bookshelf behind my PC desk. Since then, Shadowe has been written up for Champions and Mutants & Masterminds ( http://www.chemlak.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Shadowe.pdf ), but he's been played in City of Heroes.

I started RPing in City of Heroes in 2006 - somewhere around May or June, I think - and have been doing so almost non-stop ever since. And I really do mean non-stop. The only thing that's prevented me from doing so has been not actually being at home or other roleplaying commitments.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I play on the European servers, primarily on Union, and that's where my RP takes place.

3 years. There have been ups and downs, stresses and laughter, and overall it's been a lot of fun, but recently it feels as though the shine has come off. There's a lot of factors in this, notably that a number of people have left the game, and I miss them and their characters, and a lot of the "new blood" seems to be... well, the word that springs to mind is "uppity". That's a little ridiculous, I know, but I have 3 years of history for my character - he's been saving the City and the world for 3 years, and I've put a lot of love and effort into him and his relationships, and to have these young whippersnappers turn up and devalue and dismiss that effort and time... yeah, it gets on my nerves. Like I said - ridiculous, really, because RP online is PRETENDY FUN TIME GAMES ( http://wadewilson.livejournal.com/11285.html ).

However, that doesn't change the way I feel, which is almost marginalised. I sometimes wonder if a decent, wide-reaching plotline of the sort that happened shortly after I started RPing in CoH would help things, but the fragmentation of the RP community simply puts me off.

Thus I've diversified my RP, by starting my Sunday night M&M game, among other things, and I'm hoping that in the near future inspiration will strike me, giving me even more reason to dive back into my spandex and superpowers. Because the plodding along that I'm doing right now is quite dull.