Finally a review not a preview, it is at this stage I actually think about buying a MMO. What I read so far says wait and see, it has promise but the RMT’s will probably kill it for me. It was obvious to me that a game that had power boosts as part of RMT transactions was not going to let you wade through mobs like a god. They need you to have a reason to buy those boosts. So if you have had your fingers burnt, next time look before you leap.
Wut?! Power boosts in the RMT shop? The RMT shop has nothing but vanity pets.
How can someone actually use the intarweb and still be so misinformed?
I was in the closed and open beta and I think what escapes everyone here is that CO has a fairly lengthy beta period. Lenghy enough that the issues that were patched on launch day should of been handled during the beta phase. I think that's the point the OP is trying to get across. CO was in beta for the better part of 6 months. During that time these concerns were voiced over that time. Cryptic had plenty of time to gradually patch these issues during the beta but they decided to make this change once it was live, to actual paying customers. I'm actually surprised there are those that are defending a game changing patch on launch day. Patches have happened on launch days before but when it's one that greatly changes the game then I think that's a problem. As mentioned above, open beta's are being used more as preview events than actual beta events to test bugs. You know that there are players that base their buying decision off of the open beta period. Even if it's a small percentage, it's still a percentage you should account for. At the very least if you're going to make wide reaching changes like that you need to have a free respec in place on day one else you just screwed over your preview customers.
I didn't think CO has a disaster launch but it did leave a bad taste in people's mouths. That can have long reaching effects. Ask Anarchy Online how much a bad launch damages a game (that obviously is a worse case scenario).
I am thankful that I did not pre-order CO or play in the beta as I guess it's nice not to know how the game was before the launch day patch. I do find at times the mobs can be a bit difficult to handle but I also like that the game isn't easy mode. Seriously, not all MMO's need to be like Warcraft where the first 50 levels are just mind numbing easy mode. I know, it's a super hero game and we should be super but I also like a challenge. /shrug The game is getting better after launch, I don't think anyone can dispute that as Cryptic has been very good with patching in fixes on a very regular basis. They are also getting ready for their first content release in Octoberish sometime. All in all this is a very fun game so far but it has what many new MMO's have, things that need to be worked on. The falacy that an MMO is going to launch with no issues and totally feature complete needs to go bye bye. I've never played an MMO that launched that way and I don't expect to. Things change, build a bridge and get over it.
This sort of piece being pubished by an "internet publication" is just another example of why it's hard to take any writer seriously here at mmorpg.com. Maybe this is the sort of thing we should expect with non-compensated writers. However, it's still unacceptable.
The very fact that the writer giving his "first impressions" refers to the status of the game in beta and head start prior to launch is hillarious. Anyone in the gaming industry knows the reasoning for betas, and head start is no promise of how things will be, it's merely a way to start your character early while the retail version and it's changes are finalized!
Too many people are taking advantages of Betas as a way to preview the game. That's not the F***in' purpose for crying out loud. It's to catch bugs, balance issues, performance issues - report them, rinse and repeat. It's not for the purpose of what it has turned into....
The very fact that the writer giving his "first impressions" refers to the status of the game in beta and head start prior to launch is hillarious. Anyone in the gaming industry knows the reasoning for betas, and head start is no promise of how things will be, it's merely a way to start your character early while the retail version and it's changes are finalized!
This is exactly right. I think I just realized what my biggest problem with the article was, it was not a first impression. This article stated (for the most part) as to how the game changed from beta to live. That's what's most infuriating. If the articles was called "Champions Online: Beta to live" then I would have been more receptive to it. The author isn't wrong, but, as you suggest, is abusing his privilege of being a beta tester.
Originally posted by GTwander:
How are you an MMO? Or any of us for that matter?
I say we strike all users from the site for not being MMOs.
Some of you need to get a clue. Condemning an author for writing his opinion is childish. If some of you can't figure out how the word "boneheaded" fits with Cryptics actions you indeed are challenged. No disputes that the changes were in fact necessary, it was the way Cryptic implemented them.
How is the MT store? I always figured they made resources scarce to fuel that thing. Have they scaled it back? I was always worried it would effect game play on a base level. Because like it or not, hell you don't even have to believe it, but game design is effected by adding a dedicated store. Greedy sods.
The store inventory currently consists only of vanity pets called Action Figures. All the doom and gloom was for naught.
Or did the gloom and doom change it? Because I remember several interviews where it was more than just pets. Be dismissive if you wish, the backlash changed the outcome I believe.
Or, perhaps you're both mistaken and the actual content going into the store simply isn't in there yet. My money's on the backlash changing nothing.
Why do you continue on into hypocrisy? The more you say unto the OP, the more you seem the bias one.
Given, at FIRST IMPRESSION, his (Mike B.'s) post seems as though he's about to flame CO to dust, but his assessment is justified time and time again. It's as if they made the same mistake twice. Again, I say that it isn't their first time. This sounds worse than SWG's release issues, so he made a valid point in that they SHOULD have said something to the testers prior to launch.
I'm going to close with this: there wasn't any backlash. Only a NECESSARY statement (as I'm not going to go out and waste my money on this game. Cryptic will have to fix what SHOULD have been fixed during the middle of beta) was made that it went from to ok to WHOA in a day's time.
I'm honestly glad I neglected to test this game. It looks as though my thoughts would have gone unscene by the dev team (also something that's not good for the longevity of an MMO).
Again, guy, I love you and babies and stuff. Peace in the middle east aaaaaaaaand, get off your high horse. Mike B. was right to say what he posted.
Mike, thank you for the informative first look, and PLEASE keep us up-to-date on when the game will be good.
No offense, but I think we're talking about something you're not. I mean, it's great you're spirited about the debate, but we're talking about the MT store...umm, we're not talking about the patch, per se.
None taken because I understood what was going on here. I just enjoy adding ridiculous sidebars. I'm also annoyed that yet another release has been follied by this developer. It was bad enough that I bought CoH and played it for only 6 months before throwing in the towel. At that time, CoH was ridiculously easy, even for my new-to-mmo friends, which says a lot if only to me.
Also, lord kept getting his panties in a wad, which in turn twisted mine up (we're siamese twins). But now we're back to normal! All's well that ends in a high five.
Wow, the point just ran around you and hid in the bushes.
No, I think you just ran for the bushes...thanks for not having an answer to a different way in which difficulty could have been adjusted to the game....
Sorry. You're not here for discourse, even I can see that. Would be a bit silly to engage you seriously on any level. I can already see the outcome of that. You should be thankful I saved us both some time. I can shred these old bills and you can log onto Halo and scream at people. Look how productive we are
I've read pretty much all of this, and as someone who has NOT played the game, I'm still aware of the issues. Thus there are some things to conclude from this article. And some obvious corrections to the posters needs to be made
1st. Beta is around not only to test the game, but to also promote the game. Sure correcting things and fixing bugs is extremely important, but it is also naive to think that in present days of MMO's that it's also about promotion and advertising as well.
2nd. OP is correct about the patch, regardless of how people might disagree. Sure they changed the game in reponse to feedback, but something like that should be tested ahead of time, pre-launch. Something like that patch should've been changed about 2 weeks before and tested. It's also easy to conclude this because of the miriad patch contents after release to fix the issues cropped up from opening day patch.
3rd. It's also naive to think that MMO launches in present day climates will be perfect. Games are pretty much released in more of a final beta stage.
4th. Comparing CO to EQ, WoW, DaoC, etc... is also flawed. It has a different demographic, and a different fanbase. Sure some of it might overlap, but realistically people play it to be a superhero, not someone who struggles on a random nobody mobs. Add that to say that the shelf life of this game is limited (as one poster said) is ludicrous. MMO's cost millions of dollars, are planned and developed for years, expansion ideas are most likely already being looked at and in the pre-work stages. Games are developed for the long haul, not for 1 or 2 years.
5th. One of the more interseting posts was about how playable that the game was though. The servers are stable, everything for the most part works as it's supposed to. I do wish OP would've gone into a little more depth on this as an impression than "technically good".
6th. Consumers drive the market. Alienate the consumer, you kill your subscribers. How many will go back to AoC? War? Yet how many will go back to WoW when Cataclysm comes out? I'd definitely bet on WoW and that's not just about numbers, but I'd almost be willing to bet about percentages. Blizzard, for the most part, has done an extremely good job of listening to the players. It's really one of the main reasons it's as large as it is.
Lastly, as said, I've not as yet played CO. I wasn't in beta or really tried. What I mean by this, is that with MMO's today, players aren't coming in naive. It's likely not the first MMO they've ever played. Thus they understand about making characters, about classes, and for the most part how most of the games work. Customers, for the most part, are pre-educated to the games at launch. Thus, we'll do our research before we purchase the game. I was ready to go out and purchase it as of day 1. But upon reading 1st impression responses from posters on mmorpg.com, I realized it was a good idea to wait. And honestly, the patch was the biggest influence. It told me developers were, well, still developing, putting in huge changes at launch. Not that this wasn't unexpected, but it told me the game was more in a state of flux than I had previously thought. So I'll wait at least another month before I purchase.
I've made the mistake of purchasing MMO's at launch day, and honestly, it's not one I want to make again. Thus R.I.P. SWG, AoC, War, all those I played for one month and never looked back, well only to look and say that I seriously wasted $50.
The developers immediately changed the game within days from "launch"; yes "launch". And that change(s) inevitably made many players who felt "Super", feel "Ordinary". This is a superhero pve, static, linear, single-player-esque, lobby-type, multiplayer game.
So I agree with the summation that this game is "Pretty Fun". But then again, any game can be pretty fun, so nothing remarkably new with Champions Online, really.
I'd say that this game has a short shelf-life, but is still comparably less expensive than other forms of entertainment, and you can get your money's worth over the course of a couple of months and move-on.
To me, it seems that the game-play is actually very easy and very rudimentary and much more linearly repetitive than any other player-versus-predictable computer controlled environmental pixel game out there. The computer-controlled environment that one plays against is as easy a pve ecosystem there is. There's nothing difficult about making choices in character development that fit your play-style, and as with any character-development mmo, its a matter of tailoring your character to your play-style.
This game seems to be really geared towards a younger audience, like Free Realms, whereby players are handed a win/win game-play situation all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I wanted to make it known that I understood Cryptic Studios' motives with the patch, but found the fact they didn't allow their testers to put the changes through the paces during beta a boneheaded move. Make more sense?
There's that word again. "Boneheaded." Implies a lack of intelligence or unwillingness to learn.
You really think they didn't realize this thing was going to upset some players? I'm relatively certain that the people who made the game are experienced professionals, intelligent people with degrees and everything.
Yes, they knew it would upset the players. They simply don't care. Get used to it, it's par for the course for this crew.
Yes, because I'm sure "this crew" hates money and everything to do with it. They *want* to go broke. /eyeroll If you don't like them and the way they handle things that's fine, but let's not assume they're out to ruin everything.
I never said they were out to ruin everything... or anything, for that matter. I am telling you plainly that previous experience with this development team and studio indicates strongly that they simply do not care.
They rarely fully test changes to game mechanics, regardless of the potential impact, and they will consistently ignore subscriber feedback, to the detriment of the game play and the subscriber population.
Particularly in the matter of this title (Champions Online) which in my opinion, is a throwaway fundraiser to replace their lost Marvel MMO development investment.
You're a writer for this website so I can only assume you know how this works: Patches take time to develop. They take time to test. They take time to get feedback on, and they take time to alter based on that feedback. Roll all that up into a sum and you get X, X being the amount of time it takes to properly create and implement a patch.
You strike me as a relatively inexperienced MMORPG player if the concept of a "test server" to allow your subscribers to test patch content BEFORE it goes live eludes you. You don't just dump it on the players, specifically at launch. Of course, this crew is well-known for exactly this type of idiocy.
27 MMOs and counting. I'm completely familiar with the concept of a test server. I'm all for the idea of a test server, they're fantastic tools. However, for reasons I will detail below, I do not believe the use of one would have helped in this case.
Regardless of any rationale you present, the point is moot isn't it? They chose to go straight to "patch and be damned", thereby alienating a sizeable portion of their target demographic.
CoX did roughly the same thing under Cryptic Studios, and lost a considerable number of subscribers.
27 MMOs in 29 years... fascinating. Do you do anything but play games? Or do you play multiple MMOs at the same time? I'm 42 and have been playing MMOs since Neverwinter Nights on AOL, and I haven't gone through quite that many MMOs.
Since this isn't a live product, we must also factor for Y, Y being the launch date. Y is a fixed number, one mutually agreed on by Cryptic and Atari. Or maybe not, maybe Atari issued an ultimatum saying they had to launch on Y, regardless of the state of the product. It has happened before. In either case, Y is a date that, by the time it was realized the critical patch had to happen, couldn't be moved.
Wrong. You release AS IS, continue to develop the changes you feel are necessary and test them on the test server, and then release a thoroughly tested update while also keeping your subscribers informed.
Again, something that hasn't been a strong suit for this crew in the past.
Almost every beta tester agreed the game was broken in that it was too easy, lots of powers were over/under powered, and certain combinations put you into god mode. A large balance patch was not only necessary, it was being called for. To do it your way might have taken weeks. Weeks, in an MMO were wailing on up to max level in a day or two is not only possible but likely. We may have to agree to disagree on this one, but in my mind the fallout from a major rebalance patch several weeks *after* everyone got used to being in god-mode would have been a lot worse.
We will certainly have to agree to disagree. Again, the target audience for this game had already played it, by and large. They already had their expectations.
Delaying the patch for testing would have allowed the players to preview potential game mechanics changes and provide valuable feedback to more thoroughly balance the changes to achieve the developer's goal and to minimize the overall impact to the subscribers.
X was too big to fit into Y. They had to trim the process down. Since there was no time to even do so much as get patch notes up for it before it went live, I'm guessing they managed to get the thing into a workable state just under the wire by pulling triple shifts. They squeezed it onboard just in time, and the player feedback portion of the process became an unfortunate casualty. All done to make the patch content go live *before* the primary customer base could get their hands on the game and have the rug yanked out from under them days later.
The player feedback portion became an unfortunate casualty? Hmmm. So I guess they won't have any heartburn if the subscriber portion of the game becomes a casualty?
The point is; there was no need to pull the rug out from under anyone. They should have tested it thoroughly, got player feedback, explained the necessity, and balanced the patch out before releasing. With thorough testing and balancing, the patch probably wouldn't have been released for at least a month, giving the subscribers the opportunity to test it and provide input.
Again, this approach would give everyone the opportunity to get really used to and comfortable with the idea of being in god-mode all the time, when the devs knew that was not the way the game was going to have to run in the end. Also, I've never once seen "explaining the necessity" work the miracle you're thinking of, because a whole lot of MMO players seem to think they know better. They believe their fifteen bucks a month means they're entitled to special treatment and that the devs have to listen to anything and everything they say. I've never once seen a player thank a dev for a nerf that affected them, no matter how well reasoned the dev post explaining the necessity was. They always react with rage and frequently with a cancellation.
It comes down to naming your poison. Sudden changes on the preorder people vs. announced changes on the subscribers. My thinking, the fallout would have been a lot worse inflicting upon the subscribers.
I am always amused when people pull out the "subscribers think their $15 entitle them to...." because it implies that the studio that developed the MMO in question has no need of subscribers; which we know is patently false.
If any MMO developer honestly believes that they have no obligation to listen to and address their players concerns, good luck to them. It won't fill out their balance sheet, but I will wish them good luck regardless.
Subscribers do not "always react with rage" and even when they do, they normally threaten but subsequently fail to follow through on cancellations. Outright cancellations have only recently become common (perhaps the last four or five years) with the glut of comparative quality MMOs released and in development.
While I have not seen players thank developers for nerfs, I have on thousands of occasions seen them grudgingly admit that the nerf was necessary for game balance.
Sudden, unexplained, far-reaching changes to game mechanics are complete and utter idiocy. Period.
Again, testing patches thoroughly and considering subscriber feedback to arrive at a balanced patch that meets developer goals while minimizing subscriber impact is the solution. Approaching it in any other way will only lead to a reduction in subscribers, which apparently has already taken place in CO, with many six month and lifetime subscribers getting their money back.
There will always be a percentage of subscribers who will not be pleased. The goal is to keep that percentage as low as possible, not ignore the population at large.
The point I'm making is this: Hasty, it was. Boneheaded, it was not. There can be no "boneheaded" decision when your back is to the wall, the gun is to your head, and the man is in the process of squeezing the trigger, because the only truly stupid thing you can do in that situation is nothing.
Boneheaded it was. Releasing may have been a foregone conclusion; injecting an untested and unexpected patch that changed game mechanics entirely was NOT. They had an extensive beta and multiple open-beta weekends wherein their potential market played the game and either liked the mechanics or did not.
Those that liked the game enough to purchase it as it was could not have been pleased by the changes, and in fact, it seems as though many were not.
So yes, that is what I would call boneheaded.
Everyone knew the changes were coming. No one could have possibly expected, for instance, Invulnurability to remain at granting 80% protection from everything. Most of the testers I talked to about it knew changes had to eventually happen. Many wanted them to. As for whether they had to or not, my thinking is that they did, for reasons already explained. No matter what you do, nerfs are never popular. The lesser of two evils in this case was subjecting the ex-beta testers (now the preorder people) to a nerf, since they were used to the change process and at least somewhat prepared for the changes they knew had to eventually come, rather than the non-testers who would be paying customers for likely a month or more when the bomb fell.
Your rationale is fascinating; everyone knew the changes were coming, and yet a portion of those who saw them coming subscribed simply to see it happen, voice their outrage, and then cancel their subscriptions?
EVENTUALLY is considerably different than launch day, wouldn't you agree? EVENTUALLY sounds more like a testing process that occurs over a period of weeks or even months; not launch day.
If polled, would the vast majority of those who have already canceled or plan to are those who were involved in beta testing or open beta weekends; or are they new subscribers who never played any version of the game? I think the former is more likely.
Their familiarity with the change process certainly did not seem to give them much comfort.
And, before you ask, why am I making such a big deal out of this? Because this statement goes on to set the tone of the rest of your review. By writing in this fashion you make yourself more than you are, writing as though you know more than the devs. You come off sounding like--forgive me, fellow posters--an angry nerd on a video game forum, one of the ones who believes in his bones that he knows more about making and running an MMO than the people actually doing it for a living. The ones who arrogantly spout their ideas and scream things like, "They never listen to me!" when their pet cause goes ignored.
Couldn't agree less. The reviewer was fair and even-handed in the review and simply stated the facts as s/he knew them and their opinion.
It's a he. Again, you're entitled to your opinion. Personally I believe the reviewer was being intentionally incindiary, either because he believes taking a swing at the new kid in town will make him more popular, or else because he just has an axe to grind.
Or he noted the uproar over high-impact changes to game mechanics on launch day and found it to be newsworthy. Which it certainly is. I did not find him to be overly biased.
My impression is that you enjoy the game. That's a good thing, and I am glad you do. That does not mean this was not a boneheaded move on the part of the developer.
The only thing I would disagree with in the review is the "First Impressions" moniker. It should have been titled "Release Impressions". A true first impressions review would not have introduced any information from the state of the game at beta.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq Adnihilo Beorn Judge's Edge Somnulus Perfect Black ---------------------- Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2 Everquest / Everquest 2 Anarchy Online Shadowbane Dark Age of Camelot Star Wars Galaxies Matrix Online World of Warcraft Guild Wars City of Heroes
This sort of piece being pubished by an "internet publication" is just another example of why it's hard to take any writer seriously here at mmorpg.com. Maybe this is the sort of thing we should expect with non-compensated writers. However, it's still unacceptable. The very fact that the writer giving his "first impressions" refers to the status of the game in beta and head start prior to launch is hillarious. Anyone in the gaming industry knows the reasoning for betas, and head start is no promise of how things will be, it's merely a way to start your character early while the retail version and it's changes are finalized! Too many people are taking advantages of Betas as a way to preview the game. That's not the F***in' purpose for crying out loud. It's to catch bugs, balance issues, performance issues - report them, rinse and repeat. It's not for the purpose of what it has turned into.... This new breed of PC gamer makes me want to puke. *rant off*
A lot of Open BETAs are exactly what is shipped now days, the Open BETA thing has become a PR/preview gig, like it or not. This is being pushed by companies just as hard as anyone else, they include BETA time in pre-orders, special offers, as a bonus for subscribing to File Planet, etc...
"There are no classes, so it is fairly easy to gimp your character by choosing the wrong powers, talents, statistical focuses, and gear."
I too have said that a thousand times in beta, like so many others. It fell on deaf ears. The beta system wasn't perfect but it was playable and enjoyable. Now Cryptics has managed to apply a NGE at the launch day, and I seriously think that even tops SWG's NGE. WTG Cryptic! *__*
Honestly, seeing them helplessly tinkering around I have pretty much given up hope about this game. The devs apparently have no clue. The point is: You cant enforce grouping just by making the game more difficult! Thats hilarious! The game was designed around basically soloing and the quick rushing through all those relatively hollow and simple-minded missions have does just not support grouping. Now people group out of the feeling of weakness and helplessness and I can't imagine a worse motivation for a MMO to group, let alone for a Superhero MMO!
And here I was thinking I had seen the worst in MMOs in the last 2 years already. Boy... what a scam.
Name me one archetype that was removed? A power? A power function? A stat function? A feature on the box?
Huh guess this was just a balance pass afterall. The funny part is in beta people cry that it sucks and other say its beta, its going to change. Then when it does just that... they cry.
A well written report to which I fully agree. "There are no classes, so it is fairly easy to gimp your character by choosing the wrong powers, talents, statistical focuses, and gear." I too have said that a thousand times in beta, like so many others. It fell on deaf ears. The beta system wasn't perfect but it was playable and enjoyable. Now Cryptics has managed to apply a NGE at the launch day, and I seriously think that even tops SWG's NGE. WTG Cryptic! *__* Honestly, seeing them helplessly tinkering around I have pretty much given up hope about this game. The devs apparently have no clue. The point is: You cant enforce grouping just by making the game more difficult! Thats hilarious! The game was designed around basically soloing and the quick rushing through all those relatively hollow and simple-minded missions have does just not support grouping. Now people group out of the feeling of weakness and helplessness and I can't imagine a worse motivation for a MMO to group, let alone for a Superhero MMO! And here I was thinking I had seen the worst in MMOs in the last 2 years already. Boy... what a scam.
mm you cant use nge here why?because the game wasnt released lol.
nge from soe was put way after they lunched the game
game get patched all the time in the first week of lunch
but swg got a missive patch way after everbody was settled that was uncalled for
soe as been desperate since year 1 of wow to catch some of the glory trough their game
they got good title but the thing is they let the game float by itsef
as all gsmae maker do prently yes even blizzard
but contrary to other ,blizzard is working on that
other are staring at guys like me and wonder what i talk about lol
if they think just the game its self will keep player coming they ll be surprised to see empty game
if the organise various stuff in the game then player will go lol
the game it self be it aion aoc war wow lotr
we can all play that solo in a console on our various console
and lot of player do ,if we go into mmo its to see people yes but also do what contest in the game
we ll have to do ,i m not talking about silly stuff yes it could be but if you dont win anything
player will get bored
i will give the best exemple:check in lot of casino some game are so old they were there in the 70s
why is it still in there arent they loosing money,shouldnt they upgrade
nope dont need too why,because people can win something in the game be it money prize
fame yes shown everywhere around the world fame can be a nice prize too
imagine you just won the constest of the ugliest toon created that did whatever it had to do
and they bring you in korea to be the star of the whatever you will be lol
its like that ,if casino didnt work they would be all closed down
the fact is people want to win something,that they can brg about but that is exclusive
etc
i dont know what form it would take in mmorpg ,i do know player want that tho and sadly its not asvail in any mmo in existance
some website do a service like that for mmo gamer but they re not very common
because you need ingame cam you need everything needed for an e-sport lool
To me, it seems that the game-play is actually very easy and very rudimentary and much more linearly repetitive than any other player-versus-predictable computer controlled environmental pixel game out there. The computer-controlled environment that one plays against is as easy a pve ecosystem there is. There's nothing difficult about making choices in character development that fit your play-style, and as with any character-development mmo, its a matter of tailoring your character to your play-style.
This game seems to be really geared towards a younger audience, like Free Realms, whereby players are handed a win/win game-play situation all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that.
From these comments it is obvious you have never played the game. It isn't anymore linear than any other game in regards to the AI. In fact, it may be a bit non-linear with the ability to block, which is definitely needed post-patch. I think ALL games are tailored to a younger audience (they are the major market-share in the genre, though that does seem to be changing). The game doesn't hand you a win/win. It has become more difficult post-patch (which I think is better).
Like I have stated before, the game does have some issues. It is obvious you have not played it and are just spouting nonsense. Next time do some research before posting.
Ive not played much the last week, i have a 6month sub and thought id let things settle down with the changes etc which i could say killed a lot of the fun for me, hopefully in a few weeks/ a month it will be hunky dori again
If not, i will then look forward to st beta.......
Playing: FFXIV Future: wishing for SWG 2, World of Warcraft Classic Played: Most current and extinct MMO's - 18 Years in....
To me, it seems that the game-play is actually very easy and very rudimentary and much more linearly repetitive than any other player-versus-predictable computer controlled environmental pixel game out there. The computer-controlled environment that one plays against is as easy a pve ecosystem there is. There's nothing difficult about making choices in character development that fit your play-style, and as with any character-development mmo, its a matter of tailoring your character to your play-style.
This game seems to be really geared towards a younger audience, like Free Realms, whereby players are handed a win/win game-play situation all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that.
From these comments it is obvious you have never played the game. It isn't anymore linear than any other game in regards to the AI. In fact, it may be a bit non-linear with the ability to block, which is definitely needed post-patch. I think ALL games are tailored to a younger audience (they are the major market-share in the genre, though that does seem to be changing). The game doesn't hand you a win/win. It has become more difficult post-patch (which I think is better).
Like I have stated before, the game does have some issues. It is obvious you have not played it and are just spouting nonsense. Next time do some research before posting.
I was sincere in my comments and I still play the game. But lets call it like it is; its an easy game. Its linear. The story-line doesnt splinter for different archtypes or character types, and thats not bad; just saying it is what it is, linear -and- static. You will play every character against the same exact story and villains as you would with any previous character, so nothing new there.
I dont see how one can be even more ordinary with your superhero character feel than the devs have already made many feel, so the game-play with powers is what it is, but it is not difficult in the least. So, again, in short. . .this game is not difficult in the slightest and there is no risk for reward, there is no sense of loss or challenge to character development or consequences that means anything when you lose a battle. So it really should be very appealing to players that want to test-drive a super-hero game thats "pretty fun" and provides a winning environment feel all the time.
well of course this is an mmo and some of what he has described has already changed. the cost for retcon has already been reduced and you can retcon all the way back to character creation.
I just hope they make it so you don't take much damage when using "jump" type powers as well as mentioned in the article about acrobatics. Jump powers you end up taking a lot of damage from the high jumps... well, its necessary for the power, so we shouldn't take that much damage if any when using Jump travel powers.
And the description for the powers are fairly limited, which needs to be worked on...
The difficulty should be something close to COH, but it is a little bit harder overall. The reviewer is right, that is does feel a little "not so super" but honestly its ok early on, but later on in the game you should be more-so.
overall a fun game though with lots of good potential, hopefully this doesn't turn into another SWG fiasco.
I wanted to make it known that I understood Cryptic Studios' motives with the patch, but found the fact they didn't allow their testers to put the changes through the paces during beta a boneheaded move. Make more sense?
There's that word again. "Boneheaded." Implies a lack of intelligence or unwillingness to learn.
You really think they didn't realize this thing was going to upset some players? I'm relatively certain that the people who made the game are experienced professionals, intelligent people with degrees and everything.
You're a writer for this website so I can only assume you know how this works: Patches take time to develop. They take time to test. They take time to get feedback on, and they take time to alter based on that feedback. Roll all that up into a sum and you get X, X being the amount of time it takes to properly create and implement a patch.
Since this isn't a live product, we must also factor for Y, Y being the launch date. Y is a fixed number, one mutually agreed on by Cryptic and Atari. Or maybe not, maybe Atari issued an ultimatum saying they had to launch on Y, regardless of the state of the product. It has happened before. In either case, Y is a date that, by the time it was realized the critical patch had to happen, couldn't be moved.
X was too big to fit into Y. They had to trim the process down. Since there was no time to even do so much as get patch notes up for it before it went live, I'm guessing they managed to get the thing into a workable state just under the wire by pulling triple shifts. They squeezed it onboard just in time, and the player feedback portion of the process became an unfortunate casualty. All done to make the patch content go live *before* the primary customer base could get their hands on the game and have the rug yanked out from under them days later.
The point I'm making is this: Hasty, it was. Boneheaded, it was not. There can be no "boneheaded" decision when your back is to the wall, the gun is to your head, and the man is in the process of squeezing the trigger, because the only truly stupid thing you can do in that situation is nothing.
And, before you ask, why am I making such a big deal out of this? Because this statement goes on to set the tone of the rest of your review. By writing in this fashion you make yourself more than you are, writing as though you know more than the devs. You come off sounding like--forgive me, fellow posters--an angry nerd on a video game forum, one of the ones who believes in his bones that he knows more about making and running an MMO than the people actually doing it for a living. The ones who arrogantly spout their ideas and scream things like, "They never listen to me!" when their pet cause goes ignored.
Taking into consideration your theory on x,y (which is moreless accurate), and going along with your assumption that the game was only dumped out onto the floor because that bully Atari gave poor Cryptic no choice, I'd say thablame should be reflected onto Atari. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, I know that if I had a gun held to my head over a silly release date that could potentially make or break the longevity of the game and possibly ruin my chances of really having a customer base ever again, I'd do what the gunman said and release it all "willy nilly".
Actually, I take that back. Knowing me as well as I do, I'd have my own protection. A 300 lb Amazonian woman named... Amazonia... and uh, bullets would just bounce off her bouncing bossom while I escaped to my secret lair.
While your post was extremely candid and contained some brilliant rhetoric, I'm going to have to disagree with EITHER of those companies being the letters x or y. It's just not realistic. But then again, I've never heard of an x or a y developing a game before, so maybe that's just pure ignorance on my part.
Otherwise, I love you and I tend to humor the idea of us having babies together. Nothing more though. I couldn't see us moving in together. Your opinions are too smart for me. And I tend to digress from the point on a... well, I'm doing it now.
Good day to you all,
THE Rooster Nash
Speaking of X and Y, I'm pretty certain that while either the X or Y chromosome can be passed along from the male and thus determines the sex of the baby, it takes a female X chromosome to contribute in the making of said babies, among other things.
Therefore, considering that you are a male and the poster that you were quoting is indeed a male, I think this whole babies together thing is out of the question. Unless of course you were implying adoption?
As far as the article, and my 2c; Michael Bitton did mention numerous times, the words "first impressions" in the article's title as well as within the article itself, which by definition is:
im⋅pres⋅sion [im-presh-uhn]
–noun
1. a strong effect produced on the intellect, feelings, conscience, etc.
2. the first and immediate effect of an experience or perception upon the mind; sensation.
Not sure how some of you are misinterpreting this?
This game is incredibly fun, I agree with your post however. Having said that, I would not hesitate to recommend it to another gamer something I have done a couple times.
I've been playing champs online from release not been in the beta so i dont know how the game was before.
i will say this for the game playing through it slowly and carefully enjoying the content as it comes along and not just doing "grab the mission run to green circle" type game play.
The problem what this game has and i will say this for all new mmo's they are becoming watered down each and every new mmo they remove an element from the previous generation.
Unfortunatly the companies that make the games have ended up giving us games that have become less than the previous generation.
1. We lost down time in games like wow.
2. We lost forced grouping.
3. Grinding went out the window in favour of missions instead.
4.crafting became watered down click buttons instead of thinking about what you do.
The problem is that we the players have complained and moaned about these things and we have really forgotten what mmos are actually about.
Because there is no down time we no longer have time to sit and just chat with people.
i feel that the elements that we all really disliked is what made mmos fun.
Unfortunatly the fun elements of Champions online, the being a super hero bashing enemies and saving the day, its been lost along the way. In terms of fun it is a fun game but i think its lost somthing. They needed to really implement another rank of mob somthing weak that you can kill onmass to make it feel more super hero.
City of heroes always felt epic in terms of fighting you would be fighting a lot of mobs at the same time and you never really stopped while fighting.
Champs has lost this somewhere your lucky if you survive a fight with 3, i found that unless you have a rank 3 defensive ability as standard slotted in defensive mode you go over like a sack of crap. This to me sparks of superman going around in full body armour to survive a fight against normal humans.
The way they should have gotten around the whole soloing 5 man instances was with scaling they should have worked out how to make the game harder without making the game less super.
Sorry to put it bluntly but all the issues your seing now where identifed by the beta players and discussed for months. Op says that devs have "been attentive" but.. they havnt.
Its kind of insulting to beta testers that they get ignored and only make changes once its released and the general population confirms what testers have said for months.
I'll check out DC universe, but tbh if you want a heroes game, CoX is still the best.
Its too late for CO, they cocked up much like AoC did and its down hill from here.
Comments
Wut?! Power boosts in the RMT shop? The RMT shop has nothing but vanity pets.
How can someone actually use the intarweb and still be so misinformed?
I was in the closed and open beta and I think what escapes everyone here is that CO has a fairly lengthy beta period. Lenghy enough that the issues that were patched on launch day should of been handled during the beta phase. I think that's the point the OP is trying to get across. CO was in beta for the better part of 6 months. During that time these concerns were voiced over that time. Cryptic had plenty of time to gradually patch these issues during the beta but they decided to make this change once it was live, to actual paying customers. I'm actually surprised there are those that are defending a game changing patch on launch day. Patches have happened on launch days before but when it's one that greatly changes the game then I think that's a problem. As mentioned above, open beta's are being used more as preview events than actual beta events to test bugs. You know that there are players that base their buying decision off of the open beta period. Even if it's a small percentage, it's still a percentage you should account for. At the very least if you're going to make wide reaching changes like that you need to have a free respec in place on day one else you just screwed over your preview customers.
I didn't think CO has a disaster launch but it did leave a bad taste in people's mouths. That can have long reaching effects. Ask Anarchy Online how much a bad launch damages a game (that obviously is a worse case scenario).
Wow a first impression that convered umm the patch and little else?
Also the numbers are way off. Defenses were reduced from 75% to 66%, ohh ahh.
As for confusion, well duh. We didn't exactly have WoW talent trees figured out at launch either and thats a closed system.
Overall I am much happier with CO today than during CB or OB, not "damn I should have bought a Lifetime" happy but defintely liking CoX v2 more today
I am thankful that I did not pre-order CO or play in the beta as I guess it's nice not to know how the game was before the launch day patch. I do find at times the mobs can be a bit difficult to handle but I also like that the game isn't easy mode. Seriously, not all MMO's need to be like Warcraft where the first 50 levels are just mind numbing easy mode. I know, it's a super hero game and we should be super but I also like a challenge. /shrug The game is getting better after launch, I don't think anyone can dispute that as Cryptic has been very good with patching in fixes on a very regular basis. They are also getting ready for their first content release in Octoberish sometime. All in all this is a very fun game so far but it has what many new MMO's have, things that need to be worked on. The falacy that an MMO is going to launch with no issues and totally feature complete needs to go bye bye. I've never played an MMO that launched that way and I don't expect to. Things change, build a bridge and get over it.
This sort of piece being pubished by an "internet publication" is just another example of why it's hard to take any writer seriously here at mmorpg.com. Maybe this is the sort of thing we should expect with non-compensated writers. However, it's still unacceptable.
The very fact that the writer giving his "first impressions" refers to the status of the game in beta and head start prior to launch is hillarious. Anyone in the gaming industry knows the reasoning for betas, and head start is no promise of how things will be, it's merely a way to start your character early while the retail version and it's changes are finalized!
Too many people are taking advantages of Betas as a way to preview the game. That's not the F***in' purpose for crying out loud. It's to catch bugs, balance issues, performance issues - report them, rinse and repeat. It's not for the purpose of what it has turned into....
This new breed of PC gamer makes me want to puke.
*rant off*
The Adventures of Fat Gamer - http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/FatGamer
This is exactly right. I think I just realized what my biggest problem with the article was, it was not a first impression. This article stated (for the most part) as to how the game changed from beta to live. That's what's most infuriating. If the articles was called "Champions Online: Beta to live" then I would have been more receptive to it. The author isn't wrong, but, as you suggest, is abusing his privilege of being a beta tester.
Originally posted by GTwander:
How are you an MMO? Or any of us for that matter?
I say we strike all users from the site for not being MMOs.
Some of you need to get a clue. Condemning an author for writing his opinion is childish. If some of you can't figure out how the word "boneheaded" fits with Cryptics actions you indeed are challenged. No disputes that the changes were in fact necessary, it was the way Cryptic implemented them.
Some of you definitely need to chill out.
The store inventory currently consists only of vanity pets called Action Figures. All the doom and gloom was for naught.
Or did the gloom and doom change it? Because I remember several interviews where it was more than just pets. Be dismissive if you wish, the backlash changed the outcome I believe.
Or, perhaps you're both mistaken and the actual content going into the store simply isn't in there yet. My money's on the backlash changing nothing.
Why do you continue on into hypocrisy? The more you say unto the OP, the more you seem the bias one.
Given, at FIRST IMPRESSION, his (Mike B.'s) post seems as though he's about to flame CO to dust, but his assessment is justified time and time again. It's as if they made the same mistake twice. Again, I say that it isn't their first time. This sounds worse than SWG's release issues, so he made a valid point in that they SHOULD have said something to the testers prior to launch.
I'm going to close with this: there wasn't any backlash. Only a NECESSARY statement (as I'm not going to go out and waste my money on this game. Cryptic will have to fix what SHOULD have been fixed during the middle of beta) was made that it went from to ok to WHOA in a day's time.
I'm honestly glad I neglected to test this game. It looks as though my thoughts would have gone unscene by the dev team (also something that's not good for the longevity of an MMO).
Again, guy, I love you and babies and stuff. Peace in the middle east aaaaaaaaand, get off your high horse. Mike B. was right to say what he posted.
Mike, thank you for the informative first look, and PLEASE keep us up-to-date on when the game will be good.
No offense, but I think we're talking about something you're not. I mean, it's great you're spirited about the debate, but we're talking about the MT store...umm, we're not talking about the patch, per se.
None taken because I understood what was going on here. I just enjoy adding ridiculous sidebars. I'm also annoyed that yet another release has been follied by this developer. It was bad enough that I bought CoH and played it for only 6 months before throwing in the towel. At that time, CoH was ridiculously easy, even for my new-to-mmo friends, which says a lot if only to me.
Also, lord kept getting his panties in a wad, which in turn twisted mine up (we're siamese twins). But now we're back to normal! All's well that ends in a high five.
THE Rooster Nash
No, I think you just ran for the bushes...thanks for not having an answer to a different way in which difficulty could have been adjusted to the game....
Sorry. You're not here for discourse, even I can see that. Would be a bit silly to engage you seriously on any level. I can already see the outcome of that. You should be thankful I saved us both some time. I can shred these old bills and you can log onto Halo and scream at people. Look how productive we are
---EDITTED FOR MORE SUITABLE CONJECTURE---
I love MMORPG.com
THE Rooster Nash
I've read pretty much all of this, and as someone who has NOT played the game, I'm still aware of the issues. Thus there are some things to conclude from this article. And some obvious corrections to the posters needs to be made
1st. Beta is around not only to test the game, but to also promote the game. Sure correcting things and fixing bugs is extremely important, but it is also naive to think that in present days of MMO's that it's also about promotion and advertising as well.
2nd. OP is correct about the patch, regardless of how people might disagree. Sure they changed the game in reponse to feedback, but something like that should be tested ahead of time, pre-launch. Something like that patch should've been changed about 2 weeks before and tested. It's also easy to conclude this because of the miriad patch contents after release to fix the issues cropped up from opening day patch.
3rd. It's also naive to think that MMO launches in present day climates will be perfect. Games are pretty much released in more of a final beta stage.
4th. Comparing CO to EQ, WoW, DaoC, etc... is also flawed. It has a different demographic, and a different fanbase. Sure some of it might overlap, but realistically people play it to be a superhero, not someone who struggles on a random nobody mobs. Add that to say that the shelf life of this game is limited (as one poster said) is ludicrous. MMO's cost millions of dollars, are planned and developed for years, expansion ideas are most likely already being looked at and in the pre-work stages. Games are developed for the long haul, not for 1 or 2 years.
5th. One of the more interseting posts was about how playable that the game was though. The servers are stable, everything for the most part works as it's supposed to. I do wish OP would've gone into a little more depth on this as an impression than "technically good".
6th. Consumers drive the market. Alienate the consumer, you kill your subscribers. How many will go back to AoC? War? Yet how many will go back to WoW when Cataclysm comes out? I'd definitely bet on WoW and that's not just about numbers, but I'd almost be willing to bet about percentages. Blizzard, for the most part, has done an extremely good job of listening to the players. It's really one of the main reasons it's as large as it is.
Lastly, as said, I've not as yet played CO. I wasn't in beta or really tried. What I mean by this, is that with MMO's today, players aren't coming in naive. It's likely not the first MMO they've ever played. Thus they understand about making characters, about classes, and for the most part how most of the games work. Customers, for the most part, are pre-educated to the games at launch. Thus, we'll do our research before we purchase the game. I was ready to go out and purchase it as of day 1. But upon reading 1st impression responses from posters on mmorpg.com, I realized it was a good idea to wait. And honestly, the patch was the biggest influence. It told me developers were, well, still developing, putting in huge changes at launch. Not that this wasn't unexpected, but it told me the game was more in a state of flux than I had previously thought. So I'll wait at least another month before I purchase.
I've made the mistake of purchasing MMO's at launch day, and honestly, it's not one I want to make again. Thus R.I.P. SWG, AoC, War, all those I played for one month and never looked back, well only to look and say that I seriously wasted $50.
Too much drama here, but my opinion is this. . .
The developers immediately changed the game within days from "launch"; yes "launch". And that change(s) inevitably made many players who felt "Super", feel "Ordinary". This is a superhero pve, static, linear, single-player-esque, lobby-type, multiplayer game.
So I agree with the summation that this game is "Pretty Fun". But then again, any game can be pretty fun, so nothing remarkably new with Champions Online, really.
I'd say that this game has a short shelf-life, but is still comparably less expensive than other forms of entertainment, and you can get your money's worth over the course of a couple of months and move-on.
To me, it seems that the game-play is actually very easy and very rudimentary and much more linearly repetitive than any other player-versus-predictable computer controlled environmental pixel game out there. The computer-controlled environment that one plays against is as easy a pve ecosystem there is. There's nothing difficult about making choices in character development that fit your play-style, and as with any character-development mmo, its a matter of tailoring your character to your play-style.
This game seems to be really geared towards a younger audience, like Free Realms, whereby players are handed a win/win game-play situation all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that.
There's that word again. "Boneheaded." Implies a lack of intelligence or unwillingness to learn.
You really think they didn't realize this thing was going to upset some players? I'm relatively certain that the people who made the game are experienced professionals, intelligent people with degrees and everything.
Yes, they knew it would upset the players. They simply don't care. Get used to it, it's par for the course for this crew.
Yes, because I'm sure "this crew" hates money and everything to do with it. They *want* to go broke. /eyeroll If you don't like them and the way they handle things that's fine, but let's not assume they're out to ruin everything.
I never said they were out to ruin everything... or anything, for that matter. I am telling you plainly that previous experience with this development team and studio indicates strongly that they simply do not care.
They rarely fully test changes to game mechanics, regardless of the potential impact, and they will consistently ignore subscriber feedback, to the detriment of the game play and the subscriber population.
Particularly in the matter of this title (Champions Online) which in my opinion, is a throwaway fundraiser to replace their lost Marvel MMO development investment.
You're a writer for this website so I can only assume you know how this works: Patches take time to develop. They take time to test. They take time to get feedback on, and they take time to alter based on that feedback. Roll all that up into a sum and you get X, X being the amount of time it takes to properly create and implement a patch.
You strike me as a relatively inexperienced MMORPG player if the concept of a "test server" to allow your subscribers to test patch content BEFORE it goes live eludes you. You don't just dump it on the players, specifically at launch. Of course, this crew is well-known for exactly this type of idiocy.
27 MMOs and counting. I'm completely familiar with the concept of a test server. I'm all for the idea of a test server, they're fantastic tools. However, for reasons I will detail below, I do not believe the use of one would have helped in this case.
Regardless of any rationale you present, the point is moot isn't it? They chose to go straight to "patch and be damned", thereby alienating a sizeable portion of their target demographic.
CoX did roughly the same thing under Cryptic Studios, and lost a considerable number of subscribers.
27 MMOs in 29 years... fascinating. Do you do anything but play games? Or do you play multiple MMOs at the same time? I'm 42 and have been playing MMOs since Neverwinter Nights on AOL, and I haven't gone through quite that many MMOs.
Since this isn't a live product, we must also factor for Y, Y being the launch date. Y is a fixed number, one mutually agreed on by Cryptic and Atari. Or maybe not, maybe Atari issued an ultimatum saying they had to launch on Y, regardless of the state of the product. It has happened before. In either case, Y is a date that, by the time it was realized the critical patch had to happen, couldn't be moved.
Wrong. You release AS IS, continue to develop the changes you feel are necessary and test them on the test server, and then release a thoroughly tested update while also keeping your subscribers informed.
Again, something that hasn't been a strong suit for this crew in the past.
Almost every beta tester agreed the game was broken in that it was too easy, lots of powers were over/under powered, and certain combinations put you into god mode. A large balance patch was not only necessary, it was being called for. To do it your way might have taken weeks. Weeks, in an MMO were wailing on up to max level in a day or two is not only possible but likely. We may have to agree to disagree on this one, but in my mind the fallout from a major rebalance patch several weeks *after* everyone got used to being in god-mode would have been a lot worse.
We will certainly have to agree to disagree. Again, the target audience for this game had already played it, by and large. They already had their expectations.
Delaying the patch for testing would have allowed the players to preview potential game mechanics changes and provide valuable feedback to more thoroughly balance the changes to achieve the developer's goal and to minimize the overall impact to the subscribers.
X was too big to fit into Y. They had to trim the process down. Since there was no time to even do so much as get patch notes up for it before it went live, I'm guessing they managed to get the thing into a workable state just under the wire by pulling triple shifts. They squeezed it onboard just in time, and the player feedback portion of the process became an unfortunate casualty. All done to make the patch content go live *before* the primary customer base could get their hands on the game and have the rug yanked out from under them days later.
The player feedback portion became an unfortunate casualty? Hmmm. So I guess they won't have any heartburn if the subscriber portion of the game becomes a casualty?
The point is; there was no need to pull the rug out from under anyone. They should have tested it thoroughly, got player feedback, explained the necessity, and balanced the patch out before releasing. With thorough testing and balancing, the patch probably wouldn't have been released for at least a month, giving the subscribers the opportunity to test it and provide input.
Again, this approach would give everyone the opportunity to get really used to and comfortable with the idea of being in god-mode all the time, when the devs knew that was not the way the game was going to have to run in the end. Also, I've never once seen "explaining the necessity" work the miracle you're thinking of, because a whole lot of MMO players seem to think they know better. They believe their fifteen bucks a month means they're entitled to special treatment and that the devs have to listen to anything and everything they say. I've never once seen a player thank a dev for a nerf that affected them, no matter how well reasoned the dev post explaining the necessity was. They always react with rage and frequently with a cancellation.
It comes down to naming your poison. Sudden changes on the preorder people vs. announced changes on the subscribers. My thinking, the fallout would have been a lot worse inflicting upon the subscribers.
I am always amused when people pull out the "subscribers think their $15 entitle them to...." because it implies that the studio that developed the MMO in question has no need of subscribers; which we know is patently false.
If any MMO developer honestly believes that they have no obligation to listen to and address their players concerns, good luck to them. It won't fill out their balance sheet, but I will wish them good luck regardless.
Subscribers do not "always react with rage" and even when they do, they normally threaten but subsequently fail to follow through on cancellations. Outright cancellations have only recently become common (perhaps the last four or five years) with the glut of comparative quality MMOs released and in development.
While I have not seen players thank developers for nerfs, I have on thousands of occasions seen them grudgingly admit that the nerf was necessary for game balance.
Sudden, unexplained, far-reaching changes to game mechanics are complete and utter idiocy. Period.
Again, testing patches thoroughly and considering subscriber feedback to arrive at a balanced patch that meets developer goals while minimizing subscriber impact is the solution. Approaching it in any other way will only lead to a reduction in subscribers, which apparently has already taken place in CO, with many six month and lifetime subscribers getting their money back.
There will always be a percentage of subscribers who will not be pleased. The goal is to keep that percentage as low as possible, not ignore the population at large.
The point I'm making is this: Hasty, it was. Boneheaded, it was not. There can be no "boneheaded" decision when your back is to the wall, the gun is to your head, and the man is in the process of squeezing the trigger, because the only truly stupid thing you can do in that situation is nothing.
Boneheaded it was. Releasing may have been a foregone conclusion; injecting an untested and unexpected patch that changed game mechanics entirely was NOT. They had an extensive beta and multiple open-beta weekends wherein their potential market played the game and either liked the mechanics or did not.
Those that liked the game enough to purchase it as it was could not have been pleased by the changes, and in fact, it seems as though many were not.
So yes, that is what I would call boneheaded.
Everyone knew the changes were coming. No one could have possibly expected, for instance, Invulnurability to remain at granting 80% protection from everything. Most of the testers I talked to about it knew changes had to eventually happen. Many wanted them to. As for whether they had to or not, my thinking is that they did, for reasons already explained. No matter what you do, nerfs are never popular. The lesser of two evils in this case was subjecting the ex-beta testers (now the preorder people) to a nerf, since they were used to the change process and at least somewhat prepared for the changes they knew had to eventually come, rather than the non-testers who would be paying customers for likely a month or more when the bomb fell.
Your rationale is fascinating; everyone knew the changes were coming, and yet a portion of those who saw them coming subscribed simply to see it happen, voice their outrage, and then cancel their subscriptions?
EVENTUALLY is considerably different than launch day, wouldn't you agree? EVENTUALLY sounds more like a testing process that occurs over a period of weeks or even months; not launch day.
If polled, would the vast majority of those who have already canceled or plan to are those who were involved in beta testing or open beta weekends; or are they new subscribers who never played any version of the game? I think the former is more likely.
Their familiarity with the change process certainly did not seem to give them much comfort.
And, before you ask, why am I making such a big deal out of this? Because this statement goes on to set the tone of the rest of your review. By writing in this fashion you make yourself more than you are, writing as though you know more than the devs. You come off sounding like--forgive me, fellow posters--an angry nerd on a video game forum, one of the ones who believes in his bones that he knows more about making and running an MMO than the people actually doing it for a living. The ones who arrogantly spout their ideas and scream things like, "They never listen to me!" when their pet cause goes ignored.
Couldn't agree less. The reviewer was fair and even-handed in the review and simply stated the facts as s/he knew them and their opinion.
It's a he. Again, you're entitled to your opinion. Personally I believe the reviewer was being intentionally incindiary, either because he believes taking a swing at the new kid in town will make him more popular, or else because he just has an axe to grind.
Or he noted the uproar over high-impact changes to game mechanics on launch day and found it to be newsworthy. Which it certainly is. I did not find him to be overly biased.
My impression is that you enjoy the game. That's a good thing, and I am glad you do. That does not mean this was not a boneheaded move on the part of the developer.
The only thing I would disagree with in the review is the "First Impressions" moniker. It should have been titled "Release Impressions". A true first impressions review would not have introduced any information from the state of the game at beta.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
A lot of Open BETAs are exactly what is shipped now days, the Open BETA thing has become a PR/preview gig, like it or not. This is being pushed by companies just as hard as anyone else, they include BETA time in pre-orders, special offers, as a bonus for subscribing to File Planet, etc...
A well written report to which I fully agree.
"There are no classes, so it is fairly easy to gimp your character by choosing the wrong powers, talents, statistical focuses, and gear."
I too have said that a thousand times in beta, like so many others. It fell on deaf ears. The beta system wasn't perfect but it was playable and enjoyable. Now Cryptics has managed to apply a NGE at the launch day, and I seriously think that even tops SWG's NGE. WTG Cryptic! *__*
Honestly, seeing them helplessly tinkering around I have pretty much given up hope about this game. The devs apparently have no clue. The point is: You cant enforce grouping just by making the game more difficult! Thats hilarious! The game was designed around basically soloing and the quick rushing through all those relatively hollow and simple-minded missions have does just not support grouping. Now people group out of the feeling of weakness and helplessness and I can't imagine a worse motivation for a MMO to group, let alone for a Superhero MMO!
And here I was thinking I had seen the worst in MMOs in the last 2 years already. Boy... what a scam.
NGE? Really? Oye.
Name me one archetype that was removed? A power? A power function? A stat function? A feature on the box?
Huh guess this was just a balance pass afterall. The funny part is in beta people cry that it sucks and other say its beta, its going to change. Then when it does just that... they cry.
mm you cant use nge here why?because the game wasnt released lol.
nge from soe was put way after they lunched the game
game get patched all the time in the first week of lunch
but swg got a missive patch way after everbody was settled that was uncalled for
soe as been desperate since year 1 of wow to catch some of the glory trough their game
they got good title but the thing is they let the game float by itsef
as all gsmae maker do prently yes even blizzard
but contrary to other ,blizzard is working on that
other are staring at guys like me and wonder what i talk about lol
if they think just the game its self will keep player coming they ll be surprised to see empty game
if the organise various stuff in the game then player will go lol
the game it self be it aion aoc war wow lotr
we can all play that solo in a console on our various console
and lot of player do ,if we go into mmo its to see people yes but also do what contest in the game
we ll have to do ,i m not talking about silly stuff yes it could be but if you dont win anything
player will get bored
i will give the best exemple:check in lot of casino some game are so old they were there in the 70s
why is it still in there arent they loosing money,shouldnt they upgrade
nope dont need too why,because people can win something in the game be it money prize
fame yes shown everywhere around the world fame can be a nice prize too
imagine you just won the constest of the ugliest toon created that did whatever it had to do
and they bring you in korea to be the star of the whatever you will be lol
its like that ,if casino didnt work they would be all closed down
the fact is people want to win something,that they can brg about but that is exclusive
etc
i dont know what form it would take in mmorpg ,i do know player want that tho and sadly its not asvail in any mmo in existance
some website do a service like that for mmo gamer but they re not very common
because you need ingame cam you need everything needed for an e-sport lool
From these comments it is obvious you have never played the game. It isn't anymore linear than any other game in regards to the AI. In fact, it may be a bit non-linear with the ability to block, which is definitely needed post-patch. I think ALL games are tailored to a younger audience (they are the major market-share in the genre, though that does seem to be changing). The game doesn't hand you a win/win. It has become more difficult post-patch (which I think is better).
Like I have stated before, the game does have some issues. It is obvious you have not played it and are just spouting nonsense. Next time do some research before posting.
Ive not played much the last week, i have a 6month sub and thought id let things settle down with the changes etc which i could say killed a lot of the fun for me, hopefully in a few weeks/ a month it will be hunky dori again
If not, i will then look forward to st beta.......
Playing: FFXIV
Future: wishing for SWG 2, World of Warcraft Classic
Played: Most current and extinct MMO's - 18 Years in....
Interesting Fact - I own 27 Tarantula's
My roommate, tired of WoW and desiring a new MMO experience, bought Champions Online and began to play it. He found the game very disappointing.
He's now playing City of Heroes.
From these comments it is obvious you have never played the game. It isn't anymore linear than any other game in regards to the AI. In fact, it may be a bit non-linear with the ability to block, which is definitely needed post-patch. I think ALL games are tailored to a younger audience (they are the major market-share in the genre, though that does seem to be changing). The game doesn't hand you a win/win. It has become more difficult post-patch (which I think is better).
Like I have stated before, the game does have some issues. It is obvious you have not played it and are just spouting nonsense. Next time do some research before posting.
I was sincere in my comments and I still play the game. But lets call it like it is; its an easy game. Its linear. The story-line doesnt splinter for different archtypes or character types, and thats not bad; just saying it is what it is, linear -and- static. You will play every character against the same exact story and villains as you would with any previous character, so nothing new there.
I dont see how one can be even more ordinary with your superhero character feel than the devs have already made many feel, so the game-play with powers is what it is, but it is not difficult in the least. So, again, in short. . .this game is not difficult in the slightest and there is no risk for reward, there is no sense of loss or challenge to character development or consequences that means anything when you lose a battle. So it really should be very appealing to players that want to test-drive a super-hero game thats "pretty fun" and provides a winning environment feel all the time.
well of course this is an mmo and some of what he has described has already changed. the cost for retcon has already been reduced and you can retcon all the way back to character creation.
I just hope they make it so you don't take much damage when using "jump" type powers as well as mentioned in the article about acrobatics. Jump powers you end up taking a lot of damage from the high jumps... well, its necessary for the power, so we shouldn't take that much damage if any when using Jump travel powers.
And the description for the powers are fairly limited, which needs to be worked on...
The difficulty should be something close to COH, but it is a little bit harder overall. The reviewer is right, that is does feel a little "not so super" but honestly its ok early on, but later on in the game you should be more-so.
overall a fun game though with lots of good potential, hopefully this doesn't turn into another SWG fiasco.
There's that word again. "Boneheaded." Implies a lack of intelligence or unwillingness to learn.
You really think they didn't realize this thing was going to upset some players? I'm relatively certain that the people who made the game are experienced professionals, intelligent people with degrees and everything.
You're a writer for this website so I can only assume you know how this works: Patches take time to develop. They take time to test. They take time to get feedback on, and they take time to alter based on that feedback. Roll all that up into a sum and you get X, X being the amount of time it takes to properly create and implement a patch.
Since this isn't a live product, we must also factor for Y, Y being the launch date. Y is a fixed number, one mutually agreed on by Cryptic and Atari. Or maybe not, maybe Atari issued an ultimatum saying they had to launch on Y, regardless of the state of the product. It has happened before. In either case, Y is a date that, by the time it was realized the critical patch had to happen, couldn't be moved.
X was too big to fit into Y. They had to trim the process down. Since there was no time to even do so much as get patch notes up for it before it went live, I'm guessing they managed to get the thing into a workable state just under the wire by pulling triple shifts. They squeezed it onboard just in time, and the player feedback portion of the process became an unfortunate casualty. All done to make the patch content go live *before* the primary customer base could get their hands on the game and have the rug yanked out from under them days later.
The point I'm making is this: Hasty, it was. Boneheaded, it was not. There can be no "boneheaded" decision when your back is to the wall, the gun is to your head, and the man is in the process of squeezing the trigger, because the only truly stupid thing you can do in that situation is nothing.
And, before you ask, why am I making such a big deal out of this? Because this statement goes on to set the tone of the rest of your review. By writing in this fashion you make yourself more than you are, writing as though you know more than the devs. You come off sounding like--forgive me, fellow posters--an angry nerd on a video game forum, one of the ones who believes in his bones that he knows more about making and running an MMO than the people actually doing it for a living. The ones who arrogantly spout their ideas and scream things like, "They never listen to me!" when their pet cause goes ignored.
Taking into consideration your theory on x,y (which is moreless accurate), and going along with your assumption that the game was only dumped out onto the floor because that bully Atari gave poor Cryptic no choice, I'd say thablame should be reflected onto Atari. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, I know that if I had a gun held to my head over a silly release date that could potentially make or break the longevity of the game and possibly ruin my chances of really having a customer base ever again, I'd do what the gunman said and release it all "willy nilly".
Actually, I take that back. Knowing me as well as I do, I'd have my own protection. A 300 lb Amazonian woman named... Amazonia... and uh, bullets would just bounce off her bouncing bossom while I escaped to my secret lair.
While your post was extremely candid and contained some brilliant rhetoric, I'm going to have to disagree with EITHER of those companies being the letters x or y. It's just not realistic. But then again, I've never heard of an x or a y developing a game before, so maybe that's just pure ignorance on my part.
Otherwise, I love you and I tend to humor the idea of us having babies together. Nothing more though. I couldn't see us moving in together. Your opinions are too smart for me. And I tend to digress from the point on a... well, I'm doing it now.
Good day to you all,
THE Rooster Nash
Speaking of X and Y, I'm pretty certain that while either the X or Y chromosome can be passed along from the male and thus determines the sex of the baby, it takes a female X chromosome to contribute in the making of said babies, among other things.
Therefore, considering that you are a male and the poster that you were quoting is indeed a male, I think this whole babies together thing is out of the question. Unless of course you were implying adoption?
As far as the article, and my 2c; Michael Bitton did mention numerous times, the words "first impressions" in the article's title as well as within the article itself, which by definition is:
im⋅pres⋅sion [im-presh-uhn]
–noun
1. a strong effect produced on the intellect, feelings, conscience, etc.
2. the first and immediate effect of an experience or perception upon the mind; sensation.
Not sure how some of you are misinterpreting this?
Your fail comment, failed.
This game is incredibly fun, I agree with your post however. Having said that, I would not hesitate to recommend it to another gamer something I have done a couple times.
I hope they make us super again.
I've been playing champs online from release not been in the beta so i dont know how the game was before.
i will say this for the game playing through it slowly and carefully enjoying the content as it comes along and not just doing "grab the mission run to green circle" type game play.
The problem what this game has and i will say this for all new mmo's they are becoming watered down each and every new mmo they remove an element from the previous generation.
Unfortunatly the companies that make the games have ended up giving us games that have become less than the previous generation.
1. We lost down time in games like wow.
2. We lost forced grouping.
3. Grinding went out the window in favour of missions instead.
4.crafting became watered down click buttons instead of thinking about what you do.
The problem is that we the players have complained and moaned about these things and we have really forgotten what mmos are actually about.
Because there is no down time we no longer have time to sit and just chat with people.
i feel that the elements that we all really disliked is what made mmos fun.
Unfortunatly the fun elements of Champions online, the being a super hero bashing enemies and saving the day, its been lost along the way. In terms of fun it is a fun game but i think its lost somthing. They needed to really implement another rank of mob somthing weak that you can kill onmass to make it feel more super hero.
City of heroes always felt epic in terms of fighting you would be fighting a lot of mobs at the same time and you never really stopped while fighting.
Champs has lost this somewhere your lucky if you survive a fight with 3, i found that unless you have a rank 3 defensive ability as standard slotted in defensive mode you go over like a sack of crap. This to me sparks of superman going around in full body armour to survive a fight against normal humans.
The way they should have gotten around the whole soloing 5 man instances was with scaling they should have worked out how to make the game harder without making the game less super.
The devs are idiots and the game does suck,
Sorry to put it bluntly but all the issues your seing now where identifed by the beta players and discussed for months. Op says that devs have "been attentive" but.. they havnt.
Its kind of insulting to beta testers that they get ignored and only make changes once its released and the general population confirms what testers have said for months.
I'll check out DC universe, but tbh if you want a heroes game, CoX is still the best.
Its too late for CO, they cocked up much like AoC did and its down hill from here.