User:Archabaddon

aka Obsidius

ArchAbaddon is the "web sobriquet" of the City of Heroes / Villains player more commonly known as Obsidius.

Bio

Birthday: October 1977
Location: Southern California
Occupation: IT Trainer/ Network Engineer/ Part-time student
Other skills: Computer technician
Hobbies: MMOs (of course), PC games, P&P RPGs, paintball, sketching, machinima, wiki, goth clubs

MMO History

About Obsidius

This user's global chat handle is @Obsidius.

This user is Purposeful.

This user plays both City of Heroes and Villains on the Triumph server.

Obsidius is a Leader and co-founder of the Paragon Regulators SG on the Triumph server.

Obsidius is a Member of Oni's Tears VG on the Triumph server.

This user's main main hero is a Tanker.

This user's main villain is a Mastermind.

This user has one or more Level 50 Heroes and Villains.

PST

This user's time zone is PST.

EverQuest (2002)

I first began his MMO "career" in the popular MMO EverQuest. My first and only character in EverQuest was a Dark Elf Shadow Knight named Alaestor. Aleastor made it to level 35 before my friends asked me to leave EverQuest to join them for Dark Age of Camelot. In his last act in EverQuest, Alaestor jumped off a cliff, ending his mediocre career hunting cockatrices.

Dark Age of Camelot (2003-2004)

In Dark Age of Camelot, Alaestor was reincarnated (this time as Alaestor Praetorian, an Albion Reaver) and joined up with Liam's Regulars of the Nimue server. LR was a guild founded by one of my friends during his days in Ultima Online, and the guild had ported over to DAoC. I spent over a year playing DAoC, learning things about guild RvR (Realm vs. Realm), guild organization and camaraderie, crafting systems, and the like. Alaestor eventually made it to level 60 (the highest level at that time).

A few things led to the end of my career in DAoC:

The first of these things was the expansion the Trials of Atlantis. Many of the new items required extensive amounts of gameplay and waiting for world spawns that had extremely long real-world respawn timers. This expansion soured my taste for the game.

To a lesser extent, I was also turned off by RvR. Playing in groups was great, but there was little to do as a soloist.

The final things was the dissolving of Liam's Regulars. My friend (the one who founded LR) stopped playing due to real life issues (he realized he was addicted to games). Others left the game for varied reasons or greener pastures.

Eventually, most of Liam's Regulars re-established themselves in World of Warcraft, but another friend (and former LR member) "Mr. H" and I decided to move to Paragon City.

City of Heroes / Villains (2004-2012)

I realized I was done with DAoC when my friend Mr. H introduced me to City of Heroes in June of 2004. It was definitely a break from the old "Fantasy MMO" genre. Unlike EQ or DAoC, there was no heavy grinding or long spawn times for items. There weren't even items; you picked powers. Your costume could look like whatever you wanted it to regardless of powers or enhancements. I jumped right in with both feet, and was already subscribed before my free month trial was over. I ended up selling my DAoC account, which all but funded my first year of subscription for CoH.

My first character was not Alaestor (although he would eventually return as my Ancient Roman Warshade). Inspired by my recent P&P RPG adventures in Vampire: the Masquerade, I re-created my Gargoyle character Obsidius into the digital world as a Stone Armor/Battle Axe Tank. He's still one of my favorite (and most powerful) characters.

Things changed a lot thereafter, mostly for the better. Lamentably, my co-founders also moved on to WoW (Mr. H wanted a better PvP game; Mr. R. came and went), but my wife still played and pulled in other RL and distant friends throughout our tenure in CoH and eventually CoV.

Post City of Heroes

During my last year or two of playing CoH, I got into the Star Trek Online beta. It was rough around the edges but had a lot of potential, so I signed up for a Lifetime Subscription. Since then, and after City of Heroes closed its doors, I've been helping to manage the Paragon Expeditionary Fleet, a Fleet for former City of Heroes players. I also participate on the STO Forums and STO Wiki.

I refused to try Guild Wars 2 for three reasons. Firstly, I already had a Lifetime Subscription to STO. Secondly, between school, family, and work, I didn't have a lot of time for a new MMO, on top of STO and my other games. Thirdly, I refused to purchase another NCSoft game due to the way the Paragon Studios shuttering was handled. Even after finding out that Paragon Studios knew the end may have been coming months ahead of time, their disservice to City of Heroes players during the last months the servers were online displayed a certain lack of appreciation for their customers, in my personal opinion.

Although I am cautiously optimistic about the two games being developed by CoH fans, I'm not holding my breath until a playable alpha or beta comes out. Likely, I'll back The Phoenix Project if it ever comes to light, as opposed to Heroes and Villains.

Characters of Note

Obsidius' Main Characters
Name	Security Level	Powerset	Supergroup	Server
Obsidius	50	Stone Armor / Battle Axe / Pyre Mastery	Paragon Regulators	Triumph
Alaestor	50	Umbral Blast / Umbral Aura	Paragon Regulators	Triumph
Sting Agent Striker	50	Archery / Devices / Munitions Mastery	Paragon Regulators	Triumph
Iron Reign	50	Robotics / Traps / Mace Mastery	Oni's Tears	Triumph
Hunting Machine	50	Crab Spider Soldier / Crab Spider Training / Mu Mastery	Oni's Tears	Triumph