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My Impressions on Champions Online
Kenshin2541
Member UncommonPosts: 8
Pregame
As per every game's beta test, There are bound to be a few hitches along the way. The first challenge for Champions Online, was the patching. The patcher itself was very very buggy, with its constant freezes and random crashes which removed any progress you had made with the patch. A bug had prevented the patcher from loading the files into its proper directories, resulting in a 3600 MB patch. After 12 hours of waiting, and about a million workarounds,And the download of a standalone patch, I was FINALLY finished patching and I felt i could finally enter the game world and be able to make my character. I was wrong. The servers just happened to go down at that precise moment for maintenance. Time to go grab some sleep, something I probably should have done instead of waiting for the patch issues to be resolved.
Character Creation
This is where I have to give props to Cryptic. The character creation system made by CRYPTIC is quite possibly THE most in-depth system I have ever seen. I spent hours messing around with this thing, Making some really freaky things, and that was before I even hit Costume Customization. I Must have spent nearly 19 hours today making characters, just to see how diverse I can get. I made one of every archetype, My character selection screen ranged from robots to angels to demons to the agents from the matrix.
Gameplay
This is not similar to most mmo's where you have a free world to move in. The way champions online works is in mapped rooms. You enter a map and move around and do quests in there and move onto the next area through another portal of some sort. I do ot know what the max number of people per map is, I do know I was gaming with around 25 before level 5 and around 40 after level 5. This is where things got rocky. Once I had FINALLY entered the game, I began to play, seemed pretty normal, I started out with the Sorcerey Archetype. Doing just what any mage should, Blast and run really really fast. I played it for about 25 minutes and I got to level 3 before I got bored. Once i hit level 5 after doing my first public quest *like the ones from Warhammer Online*, and first *I guess* Dungeon run, I was able to go to the Power House Training Facility. Over There, I was able to pick up a new attack, and a new mode of transportation.. I chose Flight. The Flight was pretty well done. It is full free flight But thats about as far as it goes, Free Flight. I decided to check out the next archetype, Fire. This is where the Disappotintment began. Every single archetype plays exactly the same. You just have to continually follow the pattern of run, run weak hit *which has no cooldown*, run, strong hit. Even melee characters follow the same patterns, The only major difference i could find was the difference in costume and mode of transportation *skills such as flight and what not* One thing I did have some fun with was picking stuff up from the map and slapping down my enemies.
Graphics
The graphics for this game are pretty well done. From eruptions, to explosions, to contact bursts, it all flows smoothly, The game really does look beautiful and I am impressed with how smoothly things flow. You can quite literally grab objects out of the environment, such as cars, streetlamps, crates, chairs, etc, and it happens as it would in a single player game, absolutely seamless, and it just looks great. Kudos on the great graphics engine and graphics work.
Overall
Now, I have played MMO's for nearly 9 years now. I beta test every MMO I can, I play every MMO I can, So I can view each game for what it is, rather than what I want it to be or what other people want it to be. When I first heard of Champions Online, I was Psyched and couldn't wait to play it because it truly does have a lot of great ideas floating around. After playing it, I do believe that the game needs to be reworked in many ways. There has been a lot of focus drawn to areas that really shouldn't have received it, and it draws away from the game, it really does. The character Creator could definitely have used a little bit less detail, especially when the costume removes the need for most of the physical attributes, you, probably spent an hour, picking out. Costume Creation needs to be what it is. The archetypes need to be redone in a way that they aren't all the same. They are not archetypes to too be the same, they are Archetypes to be different and promote different gameplay styles, not different times of the game when you can pick up cars and ambulances. In my honest opinion, love it or hate it, I believe this game should be delayed by atleast a year to be reworked, and bring to life all the great ideas that have been put into making it. I give this MMO an overall score of 4.5/10
Comments
I really don't think you played the game beyond the first tutorial zones. The actual zones hold about 200 people. I see on average 150 in the desert shards. The zones are HUGE. The powersets, though alike in the beginning, branch off and become diversified within each set. I think I would give this review a 2.5/10.
When i said I played with 40 people, i probably should have clarified i was choosing low population servers. And The power sets really don't get as diverse as they should, I played up until level 15 on the sorcerer yesterday, the Super Human, Fire, Ice, Power Armor Today. I really did not notice any large changes that ended up changing the gameplay at all besides the introduction of crafting.
Edit --> Until I see some changes in this game, or the gameplay I will stand by and defend my review.
Instancing killed the mmo. I really don't see how a game can be called an mmo these days and not offer a big open world, or at least one where everyone can play on it at the same time. Instancing is a good feature, but it will drag the game down if you base every aspect of the game around it. The cell shaded graphics of Champions are pretty childish, and the quests are mostly same old same old. They do have public quests but those just don't seem very exciting at all. In my opinion this game isn't even as good as CoH, an older game. How is it going to stack up againt DC Universe, a game with a huge IP behind it ?
1 thing i did learn is not to listen to the hype.
Actually, Champions is a pretty popular pen and paper IP. Not as big as DC, but popular. Also, you can turn the cell-shading off. I would have to disagree with your CoH statement. I'm having more fun playing Champions than playing CoH. AE really wrecked CoH, imo. CoH is heavily instanced as well.
I wish the shards were bigger (holding more than 200), but I have to say I'm happy they went with one server. When I started playing CoH wayy back in the day, the server I was on just died. I had to move to a more populated server. Champions has solved that problem for me. You can move freely from shard to shard to meet up with friends and sg mates.
I think you should at least play to level 25 before you say anything about the game. I am currently level 30 and play from low level to high level differs so much.
I have mixxed powers and power sets templated for playstyles etc. I have a tenk setup and a DPS setup this hit and run thing you say about gameplay only is a factor depending on what you skill. Even at low levels like 14 there is so much more to hit and run as you say.
I will go with others here and say that you probably did not even get past the tutorial stage when wrighting this. Instances are in the 200's Also you will find that no matter what quest you are doing there will be 4 others doing the same quest...
So the numbers in the zones are just fine I have found people even in the level 28 quests all doing the same one. Infact I have had to change zone numbers because of the pure number of people trying to do the same quest. I prime example was 22 zones up with 150 - 190 in each. Also I like anyone on your friends list or in your supergroup or group even shows as being in that zone so you can play with people you know.
As for the constant zoning??? What constant zoning I have used only 3 zones from 10 to 30 you again are talking about the noob quests again at level 8 where you have to goto another zone to turn it in ? This is to show you to the zones so people know where to change zones and grab new quests.
Maybe the combat feel different at level 25, but for maybe 25 levels is strange to see 40 type or 90 o 200 types to deal 34 points of damage. The oportunity lost is huge.
Graphics are good and capture the whole superhero/comic-book thing very well. Character variety is as diverse as advertised, you wont' see two players who look alike. Lots of powers to mix and match from.
Combat's fun. PvP is limited to team-deathmatch, which I found horribly uninteresting. Craft system is simplistic and also uninteresting.
A fun game, but maybe lacking the depth to keep it interesting past the first month or two.
My .02