Crusty Old Hero tells it like it was

'Whoosh. There goes another one. Up, up and away. Enjoy your shiny new jet pack while it lasts, kid. Wish I'd had one at level 5, back at the start of City of Heroes.

'But I didn't. Nobody did. In my day we had to run. You wanted to stay out of trouble, you kept to the white line down the middle of the road. You wanted to fly fast, you had to wait till level 14. You wanted a real challenge, you went swimming with the Hydra. They was worth something back then.

'And let me tell you another thing...'

'Know what else we had? Proper Nazis. None of your spacey-galacto-Cobra-clone limp-wristed wannabe Council. Those Fifth Column was mean, ruthless, honest to God Nazis. They even sounded German. All had names like Oberst This and Raserei That. Used to stand there, right there on the street, spoutin' hate. Until we came and punched 'em in the face to persuade 'em to fall down, that is.

'See this hat? Had it for years. Back when I started, you only got the one costume. And you couldn't change it. Once you chose it, you was stuck with it. You wanted to enter a costume contest, you had to make a new version of yerself. That got real complicated real quick. Hell, we didn't even have capes to run round in.

'Blasters was kings of Paragon for a while, and then the Scrappers had their day. Blasters never forgot it, though. I wake up sometimes at night still hearin' what I heard the day they nerfed Old Smokey. Thought the screamin' would never stop.

'We had roley-players back then. So damn many of them. I recall they used to get together in Gemini Park over on Virtue server, since there weren't no Pocket D to do their roley-playing in. Pocket D? There weren't even no Paragon Dance Party yet.

'You know what was best? Everyone used to feel they was on the same side. Didn't have none of that PvP. None of that Loot, neither. No Drops 'cept for Enhancements and Inspirations. And you could slot stuff up pretty much how you wanted. Guess you don't need me to tell you how all that came to an end.

'We talked different back then, too. You could say 'healer' without folks freakin' out on you.

'You needed 'em, too. It was a rough old place, Paragon, before they went all soft-soap on you and started givin' out half debt in missions, then no debt at all until you was level 10, then bringin' down the debt cap. Used to be, you bit the carpet, you really felt it.

'The womenfolk used to have nipples, though. Now that I do miss.

'Say that reminds me of the time the water in Perez Park and Eden all froze over...'