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City of Villains: MMORPG.com's Preview
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Laura Genender - who will be joining me in Austin to cover this year's AGC conference starting Thursday - has been playing City of Heroes and files this report in advance of the game's Monday launch.
;) Scene. A dirty prison yard, littered with discarded newspapers. The lighting is horrible, police sirens blare in your ears. Its a breakout, and according to local thug H.T., the one being broken out is you.
Welcome to City of Villains. From the moment you load your character youre hip deep in action, doing dirty work for shady contacts in order to further your career and gain infamy among the populace. The tutorial zone, Breakout, tells the story of your escape from prison; from then on you make your own path, choosing which NPC contacts to do missions for, what zones to frequent, and which jobs you take. As is expected, City of Villains (CoV) has a lot in common with its sister game, City of Heroes (CoH). In some ways, CoV is disappoingtly similar; for instance, many of the missions require the same action (kill all the hostiles, kill the boss at the end, activate the item, etc) with only minor changes to storyline (the hostiles are cops instead of thugs, the boss is a hero instead of a gang leader, youre activating a bomb, not deactivating it) to freshen it up. But the differences are there, and noticeable enough to be crucial to gameplay. |
You can read the full preview here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
Shouldn't that yellow headline read, "Is it really that different from City of Heroes?"
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"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb." -- Batman
Well written preview. Highlighted the good and bad points very well without interjecting too much opinion.
It was nice, but there was no talk of PvP, so I was a little dissapointed.
Ya, PvP was lightly touch on when comparing the arch-types but not enough. There are 3 PvP zones currently. Each one with it's own objective. There is also the Arena with a twist, where you can "pokemon" with badges.
Myself, I've only played the bases and PvE, have not got into the base raids, nor the PvP zone or the Arena Gladiators.
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
Sounds like I made the right decision to not pick it up and instead cancel my COH account. The game is too repetitive and has nothing else to offer besides the constant grinding for levels. Slightly tweaked archetypes and missions with the ability to build a supergroup base is not enough to get me to spend 50-60 bucks on a new game. Yes the character customization is amazing, but when you would rather create new characters than play one it says something about the gameplay of the MMORPG.
=Dan
I agree with the above poster and the original article.
It made a good point that City of Villains is a modified City of Heroes.
The missions are basically the same, click glowie, kill all.
The only things I would consider new to CoV apart which makes it different from City of Heroes is:
1) The base building and salvage (loot)
2) PvP Zones.
Other than that, its a modified CoH.
Worth $50 dollars retail + $15 dollars a month? Not here.
cant freaking wait, i got the beta and i cant wait to play this game tomarrow.
Also a well written review and very honest.
Also....
"Cryptic did a particularly masterful job on the archetypes; theyre close enough to the CoH archetypes to balance in PvP, but different enough to foster new tactics and game play."
Thats a very big call Laura... do you know something that the 5000+ posters in the thread on this topic at the CoH forums dont ?
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God bless Cryptic
I was a first-wave CoV beta player, being a CoH player since its beta. I've decided to not buy CoV, and further to let my sub to CoH run out. (Although that's due to the constant stream of changes over the past few months.)
CoV is somewhat different from CoH, but it isn't different enough. Outside of the new Mastermind archetype, the powersets are just mix-and-match from the current CoH ones. The mission maps are the biggest letdown, as fully 75-80% of them through the upper-20s levels are identical to the existing CoH mission maps. The color palette has been changed, but in every other regard they are the same boring maps. One of the new missions maps, featuring a junkyard, is competing with the despised blue caves for the title of "most hated map" because it's so difficult to maneuver in. Similarly, the primary zones are difficult to navigate, some of them frustratingly so, including the introductory zone of Mercy Island.
The concerns of "not feeling villainous enough" are real, because not only are the mission maps re-used but many of the same villains show up. Aside from the different mission text, it often feels like the exact same game.
The good points of the game mostly come from minor quality of life improvements and the overall art design. The choices in the costume creator are amazing, even more so than CoH's. Some of the new mission maps, such as the casino and bank, are interesting. Unfortunately, they are used all too rarely.
It's a fairly disappointing game, all things considered.
The question is ...
can superheroes and supervillains duke it out in PvP zones, leveling whole city blocks ? And does THAT play well ? Is it fun ? Is it balanced ? Is it laggy ? Do you need both CoH and CoV to play there ?
Have fun
Erillion
Heroes and villains can combat each other in PvP, but you can't affect the environment, so no block-levelling.
I don't care for the PvP in CoH/CoV because it's unbalanced. Some powersets are simply superior to others, lending an advantage. There's a lot of talk about this type of "rock-paper-scissors" PvP but the issue is that you never know what the composition is going to be. If you have all "rocks" on one side and all "paper" on the other, then you just aren't going to have fun. Even if you only have a slight advantage over the other team, eventually you'll start dominating the PvP. Trouble is, you just can't count on it, and the individual player's skill isn't as important as the mix of powersets.
I only played in beta, so it was extremely laggy all the time. It probably won't be as laggy on the regular servers.
You do not need both games to play in the shared PvP zones. Two of the PvP zones have areas that are "destroyed" which makes it difficult to maneuver, but those zones also have relatively uncluttered areas, as well. Geography only plays a part in hindering movement, not much else. Superspeedsters have trouble getting around, while fliers and superjumpers do well.