Just a short post on this – after three and a half years, I’ve finally unsubscribed to the MMORPG City of Heroes. I used to really enjoy it, but alas, in the last year or two I just don’t have the time and inclination to ‘play‘ a grinding level game. I only made it to level 32 with my top character.
Don’t misunderstand; I think it’s a great game, and would encourage people to go and try it out, whether or not you’re of the super hero inclination. It looks nice, plays well, and most of the other people online are fairly civil and accommodating, which is an absolute revelation after years of playing Counter Strike. Part of my problem has always been that being here in Japan, the population density in my evening was low, as the roaring lion’s share of players are in North America and to a lesser extent, Europe. That means that picking up teams or even partners for missions wasn’t easy when I was on, except at the weekend, which has increasingly become family time.
I would say I really enjoyed it for the first two and a bit years, then I would only play a bit now and again, and last month I just decided to cut my losses, or at least my subscription fee, and cancel it. I had about six characters I would play with because I was more into trying out all the different powers than advancing much higher. Ultimately, in 42 months, I burned 544 hours on it. For stats freaks, and as an example, I clocked up only 18 hours in the last year. Still, that’s an absurd amount of time when I think about it.
So that’s where I am. I won’t be going to WoW, or EVE or any other pay as you go game per se, I’ll be spending what little gaming time I have on shorter term completion projects like console games, solo or co-op, and the odd DS game.
