AMBER LOVE 01-DEC-2012 I did not log into CITY OF HEROES last night to bid the game, my avatar nor my friends goodbye.

For a few years, CoX was a huge part of my life. I still think it’s a better game than DCUO which only demo’d never played fully. I think the customization and massive amount of diversity in the CoX trounced on WoW. It was a game that never got the respect it deserved. I loved that I could make more characters than any other game too but I primarily focused on three: Zillah Rook, Amber the Stylist, and my Taxibot Medic.

I couldn’t log in last night because it’s been far too emotional for me to think about it. My first installation of CoX was a gift from someone that I considered as close to a best friend as I could ask for. It was addictive but I still was never a die hard gamer. I only had a few of those 3 a.m. nights. I was married at the time and actually enjoyed watching my husband play because it was like watching a movie you could control. Then we got another installation and groups of us would play together.

For me, all I really cared about the character designing at the in-game tailor shop, ICON. I probably spent more hours in there working on costume and hair designs than actually playing. I was able to use it to design “Amber the Stylist” who became the character in a fan fiction universe of Who Wants to a Superhero? I was supposed to audition for the show twice and backed out both times. I have little respect if any at all for “reality” television because it’s entirely fake, exaggerated and base, to be honest. I liked WWTBASH because it was different. It had challenges and required people to make decisions showing their morals although it was obvious when even that was manipulated (ie, “The Enforcer” twist). But that show gave me some of the best friends I’ll ever have and we were able to meet up in CoX to fight crime or cause mayhem.

I went back through my first blog, Hero Fashions on blogspot to check my dates. I began cosplaying in 2006, I believe, but I had commissioned my first Rogue costume from someone else and didn’t like the quality of it. I got a Disney sewing machine and began working on my first designs: Amber the Stylist and Black Cat. I can’t figure out which one I actually made first but I think it was my original Amber costume which I completed in early 2007.

CoX also brought about one of my first comic con experiences. All of us that could make it to Pittsburgh from the WWTBASH fan club met up in character at a Steel City show. I believe it was March 24-25, 2007. I even had permission to bring Caico to the show because she is also a member of the fan club and appears in quite a bit of the fan fic.

With time and life and all the stress, my marriage and that first CoX friendship ended. Around the time in 2007 when I began to socialize and make friends outside my marriage, it was the beginning of the end. My new life was not blending with my old life and I was the only one adapting and changing. Everything fell apart and with that, I stopped gaming.

I’ve logged in a handful of times only to work on character designs. The city was a ghost town. Everyone left for shinier pastures of DCUO and it was pathetic. I fight back tears now as I know that I will never be in the cemeteries, pumpkin fields or on top of statues again.

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.