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Has this game failed the super hero genre?
Reion1
Member UncommonPosts: 178
Just curious if this game is better than COH/COV or has it failed ? Bought AION and not happy with it at all. Thinking about buying Champions online.
"Everything the light touches is our kingdom" -- Mufasa
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Comments
It's a love it or ya hate it kinda game. I played CoH since beta to current, and I like Champs very much. I know alot of others who don't though. It's a good game, has its bugs and flaws, but it's different. You might like it alot or it might not be your cup of tea, but I don't think it failed the genre.
How similar is the combat? Is it where you press one key to auto attack? Or do you have directional keys where you can choose where to strike if your melee, or where you actually have to aim with range instead of auto lock? Basically is there anything that makes combat more interactive is what I'm saying.
I played the trial of CoH today (I played the game many years back) and it just feels so dated.
same auto-lock style by default........however I have seen videos on YouTube showing people that have the game's control settings configured in a Action / FPS setup. One video on there even explains how to configure the settings. You can also use an XBOX 360 controller with your PC if you would rather have a gamepad instead of KB/Mouse. I haven't tried the Action / FPS setup yet and I didn't like the 360 controller with the default MMO style auto-attack controls, but I"m thinking with that setup the 360 controller should be a lot of fun and along the lines of what I think you're looking for. If you are ok with tinkering with your settings enough to get the desired result I doubt you will be disappointed.
www.youtube.com/watch <--- FPS video with setup instructions here, it looks really simple
Most definitely, what this game offers is a purely self centre reward based on superficial appearence - hardly a breeding ground for any super or heroic ambitions.
The character creator is truely awesome, but a superhero isnt defined by their costume or their powers its about their choices and repsonses, something this game completely ignores. Once you step into the gameworld you are immediately struck by the lack of involvement for the player, the absence of choice, the linear them park feel resulting from a complete lack of conviction in the theme (even much of the mission text wallows in a humour that suggests Cryptic are embarrassed by what they are telling you and in any event just drives you forward as a thug in chaosville - when a game has to repeatedly state 'we need a hero' you know it hasn't a clue).
Ultimately Cryptic have spent a lot of time making the avatar creator and then 'made-do' with a gameworld that is the most basic and simplistic generic fantasy mmoland you could imagine, the 'skin' of the game, the most superficial layer, is the only conscession the theme/genre actually manages.
I've noticed that your posts typically only show one side of things and don't paint the whole picture. It looks like you have a hidden agenda in your posts. While there is some amount of truth to what you said, you completely overlook the simple fact that while you are doing your themepark missions that you are saving people, stopping bank robberies, thwarting the plans of villains, restoring order, and doing all manner of super heroic deeds. Wouldn't you agree that these actions sound heroic?
I felt pretty damn heroic when I left the tutorial and everyone was cheering me on and there were no more Qularr ships around. I can't even imagine feeling more heroic than I did during my first Nemesis mission when I got to stop my custom made super villain. All the people were taking photos and thanking me for saving the day.
One of the things I like about CO is that each little area of the map has its own theme. Its almost like each little section of the map is its own comic episode. You finish one area and then start a new story in the next one.
The entire game is full of super heroic deeds. I have no idea what Tyanya was expecting to be doing in a super hero game? If they didn't have any themepark missions you'd only be here complaining that the game has no direction and nothing to do. What are these choices you're expecting to make? There isn't a MMOG ever released that offers any meaningful choices to the player. Also, there isn't a comic book that offers choices to the reader. The decisions are done for you, help people, restore order, stop bad guys. Are you really expecting Cryptic to revolutionize the genre and make something completely different? If so, then the problem is in your expectations and has nothing to do with the game itself. CO is not revolutionary, but it is a good game and is loads of fun to play.
I've noticed that your posts typically only show one side of things and don't paint the whole picture. It looks like you have a hidden agenda in your posts.
Wow... Pot, meet kettle.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
In comic books and even in City of Heroes/Villians - you had good vs evil and yeah some shades of gray. Here it's pve villians and the same old lazy guild wars concept of instanced arenas. On top of that, by level 9 I was forced to craft an anti cold amulet just to do a solo instance (and why not you have one server with 34 average instances with up to 35 people in each one?) lol
Wake the explitive up or watch your population die. Nuff said. Tired of these companies that are allowed to produce such unimaginative lazy garbage - there's no room on the shelf at Best Buy for this one. Hero game = good vs evil - with the option to play both. Ever read a comic? Didn't think so on this one. WTB City of Heroes 2.
I don't think it has failed at all and it wil grow. Just this morning I was playing with a massive crowd of grouped up heroes after a Cosmic Villian named Grond. There were at least 50+ heroes, some tracking him down and he jumps across vast expanses of the desert zone while the rest of us with slower travel powers would chase him down and beat on him.
It was truly EPIC and HEROIC in every way. It was also a lot of fun to see all those varieties of costumes and powers standing against one extremely powerful villian who was rampaging the zone.
I admit that it's not much of a living, breathing world if you're looking for that, but I've found the basic combat mechanics quite fun, especially when playing a Might based character. I've found myself just jumping around Millennium City and beating up random villains, knocking them off rooftops. Though I'd say they still need to make our "superheroes" a bit stronger compared to NPCs.
The character creator and the overall level of customization in the game is just wonderful (details like being able to change where you "shoot" a certain power from - palm, fist, chest or head - is an instant win with me). I can imagine I'd perhaps get a bit bored if I was putting in too many hours, but I've been playing casually and it hasn't got old yet.
I'll say it has an amazing character creator and all that but it does delight in breaking the forth wall. It does lack dialog choices and a feeling that your doing anything really new. Every character gets saluted at the end of the tutorial, and if you do your build wrong, simply cause you want to rp your character that way then you pay for it big time.
Most people I've seen tend to build toons more for the pvp aspect than the real world, which is fine but it leads to some cookie cutter heros.
Wow... Pot, meet kettle.
It may sound strange, but while some people are only capable of bitching and moaning and doing everything they can to destroy every game in the genre, I actually enjoy these games despite some flaws. I'll openly admit to a game's faults, but I don't see the need to harp on them, point fingers at who may be at fault, or to make up stories of DOOM every time a developer opens his mouth.
Weren't you one of those people who were going on and on day after day bitching and moaning about how the MT shop was going to ruin the game? I bet you still haven't taken off your tinfoil hat yet.
The game's powers have balance issues, there needs to be more content (both group and solo content), character progression becomes stale after about 26 levels, the interface is quirky, there is no real incentive to craft, and there could be a lot more to do at end game. But NONE of that changes the fact that the game makes you feel heroic in every way.
I've noticed that your posts typically only show one side of things and don't paint the whole picture. It looks like you have a hidden agenda in your posts.
Wow... Pot, meet kettle.
I see I am not alone in feeling Aganazer is at least as guilty as I in this regard..... in my defense I have always applauded the character creator and graphics in CO and acknowledge the argument (even if I disagree) as to the fun factor of the combat system but I object to the attempted misrepresentation of the gameworld as anything other than bland generic and about as far removed from comicbook heroism as is possible to imagine.
The world design is clumsy and arbitrary, the organisation of objectives makes it inevitable you will run into features already dealt with and subsequently respawned, simple measures to vary the content offered to each succesive player have not been taken. The zones are very poorly thought out and the npc's are often in peril in the most ludicrously unconvincing manner, the wilderness zones often make it apparent that man is actually an intruder and the 'heroic' presence you have is really the result of stupidity and beligerence on behalf of your controllers (who you have no choice over). The story arcs are often contradictory seeing you fight hoards of enemies and continuing to beating them to a pulp even after you've learned they are inncocent victims and a cure is possible - brilliant....the humour is mispaced and invariably destroy any sense of urgency or danger, theres absloutely no conviction to the realisation of the npc's, no reality in how they behave or where they exist which greatly undermines any sense of achievement in saving them.....and minutes later they are unsaved again in any event. The world makes it very apparent what a profoundly ineffective and irrelevent presence the player has - its overtly more peaceful if you stay away.
Again the problem in CO is a fundmental lack of understanding of comicbooks, its your choices that define you as a hero, how you deal with adversity, the relationships you forge and the rewards you expect (or are given), but CO allows for no variety or diversity in your progress, there's one linear path to traverse from start to finish, one sole outcome and one lone aspect of reward, regardless of power, regardless of mood, regardless of look all the desicisions made in the creator count for absolutely nothing, and aside the creator/powers there are no areas where the player is even involved in the process - other games have alterate routes depending on AT, an increasing number incoroprate choice into differing stages of the process to define paths and journeys, some feature moral effects and offer consiequences - its not asking for the impossible but obviously theres no realisation of this depth in CO, and worse theres no attempt either.
Enemies in CO are not portrayed as thinking villian's, they are herds of mindlees animals literally waiting to be culled - (approriate for Fantasy games but completely inapprorpiate here - the devs actually reffered to them as critters during beta which is exactly the mentality that leads to that implementation). The actual number of objectives you are permitted to complete can be counted on the fingers of your hands from start to finish as the vast majority of tasks are works in progress you must leave in situ or else you would never leave the first zone. You aren't offered choice in faction, theres no choices in who you work for, what you do and more findamentally theres no ability to complete anything in any other than the sole linear fashion everyone else has done (even in CoH you could exploit stealth to avoid rampaging though every enemy). These are archaic restrictions.
There are a few exceptions, precious ones, ironically often assoicated with the dreaded 'instances' CoH gets crticised for but even Aganazers examples of feeling heroic are a direct product - you are cheered and applauded at the conclusion of several arcs, the lack of satisfcation and individuality is resolved in a classic case of appealing to vanity instead, ironically an aspect more associated with a villian than any mainstream comicbook hero
All valid points Tyanya and yes maybe Abrahmm pot and kettle comment isn't far from the mark. I think the main difference between some of us is that I look for things to like while some people seem much more focused on finding things to dislike. Some people find a problem, I find a solution. I often wonder why people like Abrahmm are even interested in this genre of gaming given how much they profess to hate most everything about them.
I bet I could come up with 10 examples of inconsistent world design in popular comic books. It seems to be very common in this genre and is actually a strength IMO because it makes the stories and content a bit more flexible. I am not seeing how this is a departure from the comics genre.
You pretty much summed up one of the challenges and shortcomings of the entire MMO genre of games. I have seen this exactly in every MMOG I have ever played that has quests. Maybe you're expecting CO to break the genre trends. I don't know, but its common enough that I think most MMOG fans have either learned to overlook this or are in a state of perpetually waiting for some game to have content cohesive enough to avoid it. Either way, it hasn't been done so I don't know why we should suddenly expect it to be done in CO.
There are two sides to the superhero genre. There is the campy fun side like that found in the Freedom Force games, and there is the more serious darker stuff you find in something like Batman. CO is on the campy side. Sorry you don't like that but its not a shortcoming of the game. Its a difference in thematic preference.
This is where I think you're going off into lala land. Comics are about story. The reader is never making decisions in comics. They are all made for him by the story writer. Its just like that in CO. The decisions of what to do is already decided by the mission. Its just like every quest based MMOG ever made. Combine all quests that include a player made decision in all MMOG's ever made and I bet you couldn't even finish counting them on one hand. Why are you expecting CO to suddenly break the mould? Me thinks you've been watching too many Star Wars promotion videos.
I guess you haven't made you Nemesis yet? Haven't met Foxbat? Show me one MMOG where you're arch-rival is clever enough to send minions after you. None. That means they are quite a bit more mindful than anything else in the MMOG genre.
Again, it sounds like you're having a bigger issue with the genre as a whole rather than anything specifically related to Champions Online. Most MMOG quests don't have multiple objectives. CO is one of the few that does have multipart stages to missions. I agree that I would love to see more, but its at least a step in the right direction. Getting 'caught' at Project Stein and put in a jail cell and then escaping from the cell in the building is a prime example of something you rarely see in other MMOG's.
Instances allow the designer to do a lot more than they could allow in a shared zone. Instances are good in moderation. I love DDO instances and think their depth should become a genre standard.
But the vanity is just easy to recognize. I guess you could say that I saved the world when I disabled those missiles at Project Stein but it didn't exactly feel heroic because there was no fanfare afterward. Saving the world is great and all, but is made more fulfilling by being recognized for it. I guess they could skip the whole vanity party, but those parts are fun and rewarding and the game would be LESS fun without them (which it sounds like you're asking for them to be removed because 'vanity' is a villain quality).
Anyway, their all good points since its obvious you thought them out. I just don't agree with a single one of them.
How similar is the combat? Is it where you press one key to auto attack? Or do you have directional keys where you can choose where to strike if your melee, or where you actually have to aim with range instead of auto lock? Basically is there anything that makes combat more interactive is what I'm saying.
I played the trial of CoH today (I played the game many years back) and it just feels so dated.
If you want that kind of combat , Fallen Earth is that way --->
CO is definitely alot more twicthy/action orientated than WoW, but you still effectively "lock" on a target and then just have to fire off you powers. The only difference is they have "maintains" and "charge" powers which requires more from you than merely clicking the action button, but your targeting and energy building power is pretty much auto-attack. You'll still pretty much go "tab->auto attack->special power 1->special power 2->auto attack till energy is back->tab->next target" . Maybe a heal here and there or a CC type of thing but that would fall under "special power 1/2"
I'm sure its possible to have differing views and all remain valid, if peple take the time to offer a rationale behind their thinking it might even be a worthwhile discussion.....or maybe just more disposable ramblings..... =/
I suppose I would agree that my negativity toward this title is amplified by my hopes for seeing something new/different in an mmo rather than just more of the same - as it is, in the areas I really care about (immersion and involvement) CO is no better or actually worse than CoH and many other mmo's
Inconsistencies in the comicbook world are indeed often present, but actually arise as a product of extended longevity (changes in moods and trends of the time) and the a diversity of successive writers taking a title forward, MMOs are actually far more consistent (they exist over a lot shorter timespans) and for CO to launch in this state raises serious concerns to my mind about their conviciton in the theme (the real aspect this thread is discussing imo).
In terms of CO dealing with the compromises of being an MMO, the surprise here is the complete lack of visible effort that has been applied to assist the player, I haven't played an mmo with a more careless and 'in your face' attitude toward game features that destroy immersion or involvement. Once again I have to see this not as an inevitable consequence of game (as other mmos do make better efforts) but either a lack of imagination or lack of commitment to the theme - a design issue.
I concede the campy fun side of comics is valid, but have to raise concerns as to the lack of investment your character has in the world is a direct result of the wildly varying and often inappropriate application of humour - if other areas of contributing concern didn't exist I would probably not have noticed.
Lala land can be a lot of fun, it would make a perfect mmo in many ways..... but fundamentally a player in an mmo is not reading a story, they are playing a character/role in that story - surely the purpose of the story in an mmo is to involve and immerse the player, to provide the illusion of purpose and ambition, to give them a role and then allow some ability for them to play it.......its more than a little ironic here that a game that markets the diversity of it's avatar's goes on to railroad you into possibly the most restrictive and inflexible story of any mmo (certainly of any in my experience). This is an aspect even older mmos are now addressing with gusto and fanfare and again for it to be entirely absent in a new engine speaks volumes of the commitment to the theme and the priorities of the design team.
I have played the nemesis arcs and encoutnered Foxbat (in the tutorial only mind), the nemesis may look and have the powers I design but on every other level it may just as well be random generic mastermind XXX, the minions are nothing more than the dumb witless enemy animals you cull througout 99% of the game, and may as well be envrionment ambushes - again the customisation of this feature is about as rudimentary and simplistic as any implementation you could imagine. However even were I to agree with you here, you would have to concede these only occupy 1% or less of the total gameplay time.
MMO quests in other games sometimes have multiple objectives, mission arcs often branch and crossover, content givers/contact often have their own agenda's and sub stories exclusive to forming a relationship - basic descisions can easily affect your story path, your AT almost invariably affects the story path; so compared to a game with AT's the flexibility of CO is non-existent (multi staged arcs in CO are just linear paths broken into smaller chuncks and do nothing to adress this) - having rid the avatar of AT's was not an excuse for a resolutely linear and unchanging progress paths on repeated play, it wasn't an opening for taking all descsion making out of the players hands......to do so simply destroys your investment in the theme. The only response to this appears to be increased volume - again an answer entirely devoid of imagination or thematic commitment.
Many of these problems are shared with COH but the designers have responded Instances became the quick and dirty fix that rose to domnate that game - but CO seems to be starting from scratch - there are no new idea's in CO and there are many repeated mistakes and concerns, there is a resignation of failure in much of this but even CoH has been progressing and incorprating the player into the world - CO is new and fresh yet does nothing new or fresh - I admit to cutting slack on the older game by virtue of the technical constraints of the time and the youth of the genre, but it always seemed to try to overcome these - When it comes to the gameworld CO just seems to be happy settling for the absolute bare minimum and the total absence of immersion or involvement arises not by virtue of the idea 'games have to accept that' but rather by virtue of the deisgners not even attempting to adress them, hence I fear this attitude taints the potential of the title and that is born out by the patches to date which just offer up more of the same in an attempt to see quantity hide the lack of imagination or quality.
I totaly hear where you're coming from tyanya. We would both like to see more immersion, player decisions, and a consistent world. Some of those qualities have never been done well in an MMOG and others happen more frequently in niche games.
I don't think there have been any meaningful player decisions in any MMOG I have played. I remember one mission in Tabula Rasa where you had the choice of busting a drug dealer or helping him sell drugs. Besides that one mission, I can't think of another choice I have ever made in a MMOG. Certainly none in WoW, none in the games before questing (UO, EQ, DAoC, AC), none in CoX, none in DDO, none in WAR, none in AoC. It would be cool, but I think developers are wary of creating branching quest chains because it would take double or more content for the player to experience the same amount of gameplay. SWTOR is promising to have more of these features, but I'll reserve judgement on how much it really adds to the game until I've tried it in a MMOG setting.
What I'd really like to know is this... Does a game need to have those qualities to be fun?
No, it is not a failure as a Super Hero game. It is a pretty good Super Hero game, if you ask me. However where it fails is in the MMORPG part because the game is heavily instanced and does not encourage group play but rather solo play.
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A "Game" , No. An MMORPG, i'd say Yes. The whole point of a persistent online world is to have your character "persist" IN the world also.
Champions unfortunately basically offers an MMO in almost offline format [non persistent]. Instancing as heavy as in CO is actually quite debatable as to how "persistent" this world really is. People have endlessly debated whether GuildWars is actually an MMO......CO is not much different here.
What CO is missing right now is "Villains Online" . The ability to actually be PART OF THE WORLD . As it is, CO is a playground, you are a "visitor" in this playground, there's -nothing- you , or any other player can do that will make the world react differently towards you or anyone else.
WoW have it in the form of the Alliance vs. Horde split , they also have the racial influence and then even further down the faction influence. You can actually make a conscious decision to be part of a certain segment of the world, and the world will "change" for -you- [persistence] based on this decision you made.
So yes, very few MMOs have actually gotten it right or done it "well", but lets just say the ABSENCE of this in it's -entirety- is quite noticeable in CO.
Might be worth it to read into what Bioware is doing with the next Star Wars MMO...
So you're saying that Guild War's 5 player group-only instances are no different than Champion's 100 player open instances? It doesn't even sound like there is room for debate on the matter.
How is CO's instancing any different than Aion's channels, AoC's multiple instances, Tabula Rasa's multiple instances, or D&D Online's multiple town instances. Its exactly the same as far as I can tell. They just hide it a little better by not letting you choose every time you zone. By not letting the player choose it only adds more frustration when you end up in the wrong instance. Besides, you can always just check the little box and it works just like AoC, Aion, Tabula Rasa, and every other game that uses similar technology.
Why do I see people complaining about CO's instances but never see them complaining about Aion's since it works in almost the same manner?
For a long time in beta those CO instances were set at 150 players. They actually lowered it when the game was new and you would end up with all the players in the zone working on the same lowest level areas of the map. I always thought they would put it back to 150 once players spread out. It always ran fine with 150, so I don't think it has anything to do with performance.
There are also good reasons to have some limits on the numbers of players in a zone. The benefits are numerous. No crowding, no camping, consistent player density, single server, automatically groups friends and teammates, etc. There are also some not so obvious benefits.
One of the oldest problems with MMOG's (fantasy or otherwise) is that the player never feels special, they never feel like the hero. They are just another player in a world full of equally capable players. This never happens in single players games because everyone you meet is a mundane NPC so the player feels special. So in an MMOG the way to make the player feel special is to have more NPC's than players. If you put enough mundane NPC's around the player starts to feel like they are the hero and that they are special. This is important especially for a game where you play as a superhero. The only way to ensure that there are enough NPC's around to make a player feel special is to limit the number of players allowed in the zone.
Cryptic has done this and it does make the player feel a little more superheroic. Its not perfect, but its the nature of any multiplayer environment that compromises must be made. In this case, its multiple zones and population caps.
The limit cap and heavy instancing is not the main problem (even though I dont like that either). The problem is that there is little in this game that needs a group to do and those few that exist give crappy rewards hence most people solo.
Even the PvP is mostly a solo affair as it is deathmatch everyone for himself style. There are rarely any objectives or goals that need you to work together.
Whoever designed this game designed it mainly as a single player experience with some group content tacked on as afterthought. AoC, WAR, WoW all had much more group content, even though they have alot of instances as well.
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As has been mentioned CoH has since brought in Villains (maybe not particulalry well realised (or villainous) perhaps but nevertheless an important element of choice and rp consistent contention has been incorporated into the game and provides an alternate path for the player (also a ready and thematically consistent justifcation for pvp and further development is in the offing with 'going rogue').) Contacts are themed in CoH, your choices affect the enemies you face and the origins you can conisder your foil, your choice of AT affects the storyline you are taken along and the intrusiton of the larger arc on your day to day progess is different depending on what you are..... in fact these aren't unique to CoH and are pretty much the norm for the older mmo's - we barely even consider these as options but they exist and present some degree of consequence and variety, the notable aspect here is that ALL of these are absent in CO and the game makes no effort to compensate....the importance and prioity placed on the story and theme is actively worse in CO than any other mmo I can think of - not by factors of a premature release (ooh errr missus) or technological restrictions but rather by a deliberate cynical design.
At the end of the day CoH, WoW, AoC for all their faults are better (more appealing) than the sum of their raw parts because the theme is consistent enough to offer greater depth to what they are....... CO's design actually works to undermine and restrict the theme from working its magic, you can have fun playing it, the square peg can be made to fit through that round hole but the extra effort needed sees many a player less invested and involved in the spirit of an mmo, less interested in rp, in grouping, in making the whole experience work.
Best review of CO
http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/champions-online-review/330137
Great looking game, fun combat and nice (but limited) story.
Is it better then CoX? I would say its new with some combat enhancements...all and all I feel its the same game.
Again with only half the picture. I understand its easy to pick one very narrow aspect of any game and talk about how other games have done better, but without even mentioning the game's strengths its not even showing a fraction of the whole. If a consistent theme is ALL you care about then you have a point, but many of us (hell I'd bet most of us), are a lot more forgiving of consistency and just want a fun game to play that can keep us entertained.
Story aside (which not everyone cares about and is purely subjective anyway) CoH is better for grouping only, but nothing else. Certainly not for crafting, variety of tasks, or character development choices. Not for depth of the world mechanics, graphics, server architecture, or any other technical aspects.
WoW is just an all around good game, but its not super hero and most people are sick to death of it already. But even technically, it is inferior. Out dated server architecture, no open missions, players are restricted to classes, very limited travel powers, out dated graphics engine, slow combat.
AoC has inferior world design (twice as much loading as CO), overly fiddly combat interface (simon says), poor AI, and again, its not super hero. You can't exactly recommend a fantasy game to someone asking about super heroes!
CO's strengths are in the combat system and how it mixes player skill and quick tactical decisions. Its has strong character development by offering lots of choices, more than any class based game. It doesn't make you wait 14 boring levels of ground pounding to get your travel power. It has the Nemesis system which is awesome and perfect for the super hero genre of game. Server architecture is great since you never end up on a different server from your friends and you can always find people around. There are so many technical advancements contained in this game and most of them go unnoticed (and obviously unappreciated) by many.
So sure, get all hung up on the campy and somewhat inconsistent theme of the game world. I can only hope you find enjoyment in one of the other games in this genre. I am sure that some day CO will have villainous options. Until then I am happy to enjoy what the game has to offer rather than harp on what it doesn't.
Again with only half the picture. I understand its easy to pick one very narrow aspect of any game and talk about how other games have done better,.....
I am dealing with the part of the picture that the title of this thread asks ie 'Has the game failed the Super Hero Genre' and on imo in every important level it has - it's precisely in the conviction and commitment to the theme that CO shortcomming relative to other mmos are most apparent - not because, as in the case of other games mentioned, it tries but doesn't quite succeed but more worryingly because it doesnt even try.
The only control CO give in terms of character development is superficial, the only aspect of the game that is in any ways superheroic is the skin that has been applied, the world mechanics, such as they are are grossly generic and more often than not arbitrary and even inappropriate to that theme - frequently demanding that you leave npc's in peril or you will never progress - personal investment at the expense of any conviction in the world is hardly heroic but this game gives you no choice. No other game mentioned or to my knowledge so comprehensively excludes the player from any degree of control of his journey and no other game I have experienced makes it so plain and obvious how entirely superfluous and ineffectual their presence is.
CO's strength is its purely its avatar customisation, the free power selection in this implementation is definitely a double edged sword, the combat system is also a case of 6 of one half a dozen of the other, the nemesis concept is cool but the implementation lacks any imagination whatsoever, the world mechanics are dismal and simplistic by any mmo's standards - I believe you are right in saying that the techincal advances are probably being overlooked but I would suggest this is a direct consequence of the the lack of commitment to the theme which ensures any depth is relagated to something irrelevent and optional to the core theme - ie they are easy to overlook, more often than not in CO content is peripheral to and disconnected from the theme because the design hasnt afforded that theme any priority
I'm sorry but CO feels in many ways just like CoH/CoV to me without me feeling all that super, I can have powers I can't fully use, and I may never fully use cause I just can't get the end and int I need to open them up fully while still being true to my character. The crafting is absolutely my least favorite aspect of the game, as it often breaks down to a grind of I make this item, then I break it down. I earn item x from a quest and I break it down, I sell or use items from other schools for money and stats, so I can break down the ones in the school I use. Then I hit the level cap for crafting and I have to go lvl to craft again, all the while picking up crap to craft with. Yet none of these items half way make sense for my character to be using them in a story subtext, or even open text.
Yes it is pretty instance heavy with a few open world quests, and those open raid things they had in War which I hated in War and I hate in CO. Mainly because their is no control over you having people to help you, if someone way higher lvl is involved, or if everyone else bails at the end for some event then your stuck trying to take down a boss you have no chance against.
The devs swung the nerf bat to much, and they limited to much in the game lossing the spirit of the source material in the process. Did I like CO at first, yes I loved it, then it kept changing until I just started to think the game itself was flawed and not my way of looking at it.
Also I'd never compair a game I liked to tabula rasa unless it was to say tabula rasa sucked and my game ruled, considering how fast that game died.