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Thanks for the 2 week trial - some thoughts
moonshake
Member Posts: 16
I just completed a casual sampling of CoH courtesy of the 2-week trial and I had a lot of fun.
Pros:
Character creation 2nd to none. Very versitile and refreshing, having spent most of the last year in Lotro, where characters are pretty samey. I don't think I ran into 2 characters that looked the same.
Power animations are great. I love how you could have a party full of blasters, but they all look, sound, and play differently with the different types of power sets. A party full of Hunters in lotro will all function and battle the same.
Graphics obviously not cutting edge. But for being an older game, they have held up very well over time. I wasn't walking around in "awe" of the scenery (as I do in Lotro), but the graphics were very good and didn't distract from the fun.
Sound (music and effects) are great (though the boombox emote could use a new playlist, IMO).
Cons:
I'm sure this was the noob factor here, but getting missions was not the easiest thing in the world. I guess I'm spoiled by Lotro where you walk into a town and see 6 quests on your radar, and can have 40 going at once. I don't mind the restricted number of active quests, but I wish they were easier to obtain. (Yes, I finally got a police scanner, and that helped some).
Being an above average comic book fan, I would subscribe to CoH if Champions Online wasn't on the horizon. Having a related design staff, is there any doubt that Champions Online will be many times improved (having 5 years of technology) on CoH? The only way I could see CoH as a healthy choice once Champions Online comes out, would be if CoH drops subscription price, or if Champions Charges more than the standard price.
What do you think?
Comments
Hey glad you had a good time. I've been playing for about 4 months now and I'm having a blast. There's a certian portion of the gaming community that CoH really appeals to. I think a lot of us are looking for something to break the mold from the fantasy genre. Sure there are some decent sci fi mmo's but CoH is one of a kind. Graphics, while a little dated, still give me that comic book feel. I just upgraded to a mid range video card (8600 gt) and I think the game looks georgeous. Nice effects on the powers and the zones have a nice polished look. As far as missions go. Your first contacts will get you started. Once you pass the level they can offer you they will refer you to more. Doing missions through contacts is the best because you can complete story arcs. You get a big xp bonus when you complete one. Plus you can get all kinds of really cool temporary powers. Ice armor was my favorite. There are also task force missions which are similar to small raids where you need a certain number of heroes, from 3 to 8 depending on level. Personally, my biggest con is the repetitive missions. But this is balanced by the fun factor and the satisfaction of watching your character grow in power. Champions still has a while to come out so I would recommend buying a retail key and trying out your free month. A big thing you probably did not experience in your trial is the growing of your character. It gets really addictive once you start getting extra powers and enhancement slots. Let me know if you give it another try. I play on Pinnacle.
First, glad you enjoyed CoX ( ' :
Second, I think part of the appeal of the game is exactly what you described -- a.) you can have an all blaster team and none of them may be identical and b.) the fact that you can assemble an all blaster team or combination of anything makes for constantly different and interesting tactical situations when teaming.
Third, I love the sounds. My favorite has to be energy melee. Peeshew. Puh-Peeshewe. I want to play my energy tanker now.... Fire blasters are a close second.
Fourth, was a little surprised when you mentioned it was difficult to get missions. Typically your current contacts or the detectives will give you the next level-appropriate contact. Also, after you have built up a relationship with the contact, you can "call" them rather than run all the way back for a face to face chat with them.
Finally, a few things about Champions Online. I think just about every CoX player will check out CO. Yes, CO is being designed by the guy who largely was the desginer of CoX -- Jack Emmerett. And, as of right now, CO is being developed as a skill-based system rather than level based like CoX was intended. On the flip side though, the entire CoX development team otherwise moved over to NCsoft when CoX was sold -- whether that was good or bad for Jack remains to be seen. Also, consider that CO was announced as only being a year in development...around 6 months ago... so it likely has another 1.5-2.5 years to go in my estimation. Furthermore, considering that the market will only have 2 superhero franchises, I don't think it will be the end of of CoX or necessarily lead to a price reduction. CoX will still be highly polished and therefore the incumbent to its genre the way WoW is to fantasy and EvE seems to be for sci-fi. Finally, given the acquisition of CoX by NCsoft recently and the push to introduce new content and forms of revenue generation (optional in-game ads), I suspect NCsoft isn't going to go down without a fight. My two predictions are that 1.) CoX will get a new video engine close to when CO comes out and 2.) NCsoft will roll out a Station Pass type system so that CoX and Lineage 2 can support their other games. The latter has been discussed already and some steps suggesting it is coming soon include the universal game launcher NCsoft has released and the soon to be integrated voicechat ala Valve//Steam.
So, in the end, if you liked CoX -- I'd say come join us. You can probably find the individual game boxes for cheap (10 or less -- original no-frills box of CoV is 5.99 at microcenter) in which case you could get 60 days of subtime for 30-50 percent of the normal rate.
Thanks for the insightful replies. Very persuasive points and I'm considering giving it another shot. I do kinda miss playing my characters.
I would love an ingame voice chat. I've used Vent & Teamspeak, but I'd take silence over having to putz around with those programs.
That wsa a very thought out and well-written review.
The thing about missions is that they tend to have a somewhat linear quality to them. That comes in two ways:
1) You do small missions to prove yourself and get trusted with larger ones.
2) Story arcs (and mini-arc versions) will send you on repeated missions with a related theme. First you find a disturbance, then investigate a clue, and eventually take down the big boss before his doomsday plot can occor.
As a result, a disjointed "look at all the missions we're throwing at you" style would miss out a bit. Which is not to say they couldn't make it more obvious, I think they probably could. But the idea is that you log in and have one contact, an origin-based guy who trusts you with little tasks. Once you work for him a bit, he starts vouching for you to other contacts.
Now I can see some ways they could have designed this better. (For example, why is everything so formal? Why not just be walking around town and see a person yelling "Help, they're robbing my store!") But there's something to be said for they style chosen, I think it has a very different feel from "these 6 people all have work for you."
Regarding Champions Online
I am not a Jack Emmert fan. I think he has some creative ideas that help to make his projects more interesting. But he doesn't have the leadership, technical, or mathematical skills to be a lead.
The original game had horrible, horrible imbalances. One person could do a mission set for 8 on the highest difficutly - and do it so easily that help from the other 7 would be seen as interference. Meanwhile other characters could barely solo on the lowest difficulty. PvP is often blamed for causing balance-related nerfs, but some things were obviously wrong well before that.
We eventually found out that dps was determined by the animation department with no thought to balance whatsoever. In fact I think he may not have known what dps even meant for a long time.
Another problem was that Jack tended to make things worse whenever he commented publicly. Changes would be made that were seemingly random. Then he would post an explanation with pasted "proof" that had obviously been written for a different memo, which he probably hadn't written himself, and which contained significant calculation errors.
And the ultimate fallback, used all-too-frequently, was "that's not how we intended the game to be played." Not an explanation of how something might be unhealthy, just "that isn't what we want." (For example, some people decided that their character would, when presented with a "steal the evidence" mission, rather do so stealthfully without fighting. This was clearly not a powerleveling situation, as you get xp much faster if you actually fight enemies. Yet it was specifically countered.
Now is it possible he's learned from his mistakes, or gotten people to cover his weaknesses? Sure. But the people who most did things well were the ones who stayed behind with NCSoft, so he would need to recruit a new team mostly lacking the experience of CoH.
So I'm very wary of Champions Online. They're using the same engine, so it won't be a complete overhaul. (Though I like the engine.) And this is a game that Microsoft and Marvel bowed out of their partnership for. I do think they have some interesting ideas, like the archenemy system, and so I'll be curious about CO like much of the CoH community. But I am not automatically expecting it to be better.
Currently playing:
DC Universe
Planetside 2
Magic Online
Simunomics, the Massive Multiplayer Economic Simulation Game. Play for free.
I'd certainly not wait for ChampO to come out before subbing to CoH/V. If you enjoy the game, enjoy it now and then deal with the switch (should you choose to) when the other game launches.