Is this a real mmorpg? What makes this game different than all the other generic Grinders out there?

Comments

• Brezjnev Member UncommonPosts: 98

  October 2008

  Originally posted by Calintz333
  
  
  I am looking for a fresh start into pay 2 play mmorpg games. I am sick and finished with Free 2 play Korean grind fest games that are crap.
   
  My questions for this game are the following
  What makes this game different from traditional mmorpgs?
  
  The superhero/villain theme. And as an extension of that the ways in which you can travel: teleport, flying, superspeeding,... As an extension of that "super"-traveling, pve and pvp action is usually  fast-paced and sometimes even too frantic for melees (which to me is a plus ).
  The incredible variety of ways in which you can create new costumes.
  The separation of looks and gear. What you have under the hood doesn't affect the way you look.
  The class system: both villains and heroes have only 5 "classes", but each of these classes has a choice out of several primary and secondary powersets with often a very different feel, even for the same class, giving CoX great replay value.
  The different ways in which you customize your character, most powers of your primary and secondary are a given, but you can then chose what travel powers/pool powers, how you slot your powers,...
  The ability to team with someone regardless of level, level can be adjusted down or up. There's probably more mmorpgs by now that have this, but I think CoH was the first.
  
  Is there a lot of detail in the world Can you Run into players walking around the world, go into every building in the game, brake buildings or objects, follow some sort of PvE story, Get by without grinding 500000 X mob or 3000 Y mob?
  Prepare to be disappointed. If you come from a tradional mmorpg with a large consistent world, Paragon City will be a  let down. To me it feels like a theme park where you use up one zone (with a narrow level range of mobs) before going to the next. Most of your pve time will also be spend inside missions, with using the outdoors world to travel between contacts and missions. 
  It's also no Asian grinder, you can farm outdoor mobs for xp+drops, but most people level by doing missions.
  How is the population here vs City of Heroes? What is the difference in the game play except the fact that you are evil here?
  City of Villains and City of Heroes are the same game, it used to be that you needed to buy them separately, but not anymore. Which box you buy only influences what extra fluff powers (like with collector editions in other games) you get (I think the good&evil box used to be the best for this, but that may be changed).
  Population in City of Villains is lower than in City of Heroes, but still enough people to team with (chose a server with medium or heavy load).
  Are there large active guilds / clans that focus on end game?
  Most common endgame is that people reroll. Personally I found that CoX lacked an endgame community because of this, there's really no reason to be in a large guild or coalition, although it can still be nice. Global channels are often used to organize things, so are the forums.
  There are pvp guilds that focus on that part of the game, but that usually also involves rushing through pve content so they end up with level 50 fully slotted out pvp char they don't know how to play. I've seen a few "pvp" guilds from close by and I really didn't like their look on the game, although I'm sure there's good ones out there as well. A word of advise: when looking for a guild, don't just go with the first invite you get, because guilds pop up and die all the time in CoX. Instead take your time to look at their forums + team a bit with them.
  That being said what does end game look like on here? Is it PvP focused? PvE story focused? Loot hunting focus (Ala Phantasy star model).
  
  Most common endgame: rerolling.
  Twinking for pvp/pve purposes. It takes some time to acquire all the invention enhancements to fully slot a toon, grinding these might be considered an endgame of itself. The "completed" toons are than used for pve (grinding more stuff for alts then) or pvp (e-peen).
  Pvp takes place in either the zones or arenas. Zones seem to be the most commonly used one.
  Badge hunting, got to have them all and with Oroubouros flashback missions (go back in time and redo lowbie missions) + crafting badges, it'll take a lot of time before you have them all. 
  
  Can I get some where in this game If i only play 3-4 hours a day 4 days a week?
  You can. This ofcourse depends on how you fill your ingame time, but I'dd give it about 3 months before you have your first 50.
  You also don't need to have the absolute best of equipment to be viable, skill matters. The basic enhancements are very cheap on the player market and people generally don't expect you to be better equiped than this. It's good and rare inventions that take time to get.
  If you as a player focus on 1 character, fully understand how the auction system works (the market is a money printing machine if you understand how it works), then you could have a fully purpled out character in 6 months. If you can't take advantage of  the market, this becomes alot longer because farming purples is a slow and boring process.
  Do they keep raising the level cap to keep people in the game instead of adding real content?
  Fortunately not, the max level has been 50 for years now and I don't think we'll ever see another level increase. 
  I have not herd about any sort of expansion for this game what so ever, Do they even offer expansions for this?
  City of Villains is the expansion (+separate game) to CoH, no other paid expansions (other than some fluff: extra costume options fe) that I know of.
  They do have an expansion like system with their Issues: basically very large patches that bring new content, like Strike-Forces/ missions/ zones/ mechanics/ powersets,... Issue 13: boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php
   I see there is a double game box set for only like 20 bucks at walmart has both games, is the game dead community and population wise? Or is it just not expensive because its old Like FFXI Which cost 20 bucks now but still has over 100,000 active players. and over 1 million accounts.
  Population is still going strong, the reason the price is low is the same as with FFXI: it's been around a few years already and companies have copies lying on the shelve + internet downloads (who needs a box ).
  How is the music in this game is it something that makes this game unique is it something to rave about? Some games have simply amazing music, (Sword of the new world for example) The music alone kept me there grinding bored doing nothing but GRINDING in one spot for up to 10 hours at a time just because the music was that damn good, Does this game have amazing music track that everyone wants to madly download?
   Not really imo. I can't even remember what the music was like
  What are the quests about / like on one side vs the other the progress of leveling what and how is it mostly done?
  One side roleplays villains (robbing banks, busting up other villains,...). The other side heroes (stopping bank robberies, busting up villains,...).
  Quests are usually done in mission chains: you got to a contact and he brings you a story told through different missions. Missions are usually instanced, if it's outdoors it usually is "kill X amount of Y". Same for Strike-Forces. 
  Those are my questions, they maybe alot but I am seriously looking for an mmorpg to play until GW2 or Aion comes out next year so I have about 5-10 months of mmorpg playing time. So I am asking all mmorpgs that I think might be interesting, EQ2, PoTBS, AoC, WAR, TMO, and this CoV & CoH, so...A reply or 2 whould be great
   CoX is an excellent choice to bridge some time. Imo it's an excellent game (because of the classes and gameplay), but a bad mmorpg (because of the lack of a consistent world and world pvp and the lack of mmo feel that comes with this).
  You can also get a free trial, so there's really no reason not to try it imo.
  

   

   
• Cavadus Member UncommonPosts: 707

  November 2008

  Honestly OP, unless you like going through the same linear themepark content with different abilities  over and over and over CoX doesn't really offer much IMO, particularly at max level.

  Once you hit 50 the only thing you can really do is PvP in the completely dead and empty PvP zones (and I'm on Virtue, the most populated server) or grind mobs for "purple" skill enhancement sets.  You really just end up running like the same three or four Strike/Task Forces over and over and pop into the nightclub every now and then to RP a little.

  But the PvP is bad (basically, it's all about applying the "HOLD" state [or other mez states] and then massive single target ranged spike damage attacks).  There is no crafting whatsoever (you just loot recipes, collect the ingredients, and push a button).

  Eh, I'm a sandboxer and I wore myself out on EVE, played TR (lol) for a few months when it first launched, got bored with that and piddled away a month in GW (my god that game got boring quickly), and now I casually play CoV as a time killer until Earthrise goes beta.

  The best thing I can say about the game is that it isn't fantasy but don't expect some mind blowing experience.  It's just your typical level based, class based, completely linear themepark treadmill which just happens to bank off it's unique theme (super powered beings).

  Overall it's like a 5.5/10 IMO.  The only truly nice feature is the base building system which allows guilds to grind a type of "guild currency" that allows the guilds to pimp out their bases with all sorts of nifty stuff.

  
• themilton Member Posts: 353

  November 2008

  Originally posted by Brezjnev
  
  Originally posted by Calintz333
  
  
  Is there a lot of detail in the world Can you Run into players walking around the world, go into every building in the game, break buildings or objects, follow some sort of PvE story, Get by without grinding 500000 X mob or 3000 Y mob?
  Prepare to be disappointed. If you come from a tradional mmorpg with a large consistent world, Paragon City will be a  let down. To me it feels like a theme park where you use up one zone (with a narrow level range of mobs) before going to the next. Most of your pve time will also be spend inside missions, with using the outdoors world to travel between contacts and missions. 
  It's also no Asian grinder, you can farm outdoor mobs for xp+drops, but most people level by doing missions.
  Something that came out a few months ago was 'objects' - things like leaves, bullets, newspapers that you can kick around. The bodies of your defeated enemies are teleported away, but their spent bullets are left behind. During the Halloween event, the were pumpkins sitting around - some you smashed, others you could kick around like soccer balls.
  Also, the villains do get Mayhem Missions - after robbing a bank (a timed mission), you can use your remaining time to smash mailboxes and cars and stuff. But only in that mission. The non-instanced world doesn't allow that.
  One other thing - Except for specific instances, heroes can't get into the Rogue Isles and villains can't get into Paragon City. While they are moving into making it one big game, the two sandboxes probably won't be merging.
   
   
  Are there large active guilds / clans that focus on end game?
   
  Most common endgame is that people reroll. Personally I found that CoX lacked an endgame community because of this, there's really no reason to be in a large guild or coalition, although it can still be nice. Global channels are often used to organize things, so are the forums.
  There are pvp guilds that focus on that part of the game, but that usually also involves rushing through pve content so they end up with level 50 fully slotted out pvp char they don't know how to play. I've seen a few "pvp" guilds from close by and I really didn't like their look on the game, although I'm sure there's good ones out there as well. A word of advise: when looking for a guild, don't just go with the first invite you get, because guilds pop up and die all the time in CoX. Instead take your time to look at their forums + team a bit with them.
  Another benefit of joining a villain group or supergroup is that it cuts down on pugs (if you don't like them). You get to know the other players in your group, know how thye play, and know that they can usually be trusted not to screw up. There are certain high risk/high gain missions that I just don't trust to pugs (SMTF, anyone?). A couple of the global channels I'm on started out as SG-only globals, then expanded to coalition-only. They're still my go-to channels when I want to chat or find a group.
  
   
  How is the music in this game is it something that makes this game unique is it something to rave about? Some games have simply amazing music, (Sword of the new world for example) The music alone kept me there grinding bored doing nothing but GRINDING in one spot for up to 10 hours at a time just because the music was that damn good, Does this game have amazing music track that everyone wants to madly download?
   Not really imo. I can't even remember what the music was like
  They do customize music for different settings (rave music for a rave setting, more mysterious stuff for the spookier zones, etc), but it's nothing to write home about.
  Also, several players have started CoX-oriented internet radio stations. I mainly listen to the Cape (You're not super until you put on the Cape!), but they don't actually broadcast in-game. You have to have it going through a separate program.
  What are the quests about / like on one side vs the other the progress of leveling what and how is it mostly done?
  One side roleplays villains (robbing banks, busting up other villains,...). The other side heroes (stopping bank robberies, busting up villains,...).
  Quests are usually done in mission chains: you got to a contact and he brings you a story told through different missions. Missions are usually instanced, if it's outdoors it usually is "kill X amount of Y". Same for Strike-Forces. 
  Also, almost all contacts and mission arcs are level-specific. Contact A gives you missions for levels 1-5. Once you hit level 6, they don't have any more missions for you, even if you haven't finished their arc. However, the Ouroboros system allows you to go back and complete missions you missed.
  

   

   

  
  
   

   

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  The less you expect, the more you'll be surprised. Hopefully, pleasantly so.