I have tried to like this game and played the beta and also when it launched but I always preferred City of Heroes.
CoH was among my main games during the WoW years (never liked WoW ) and I loved it. Switched over to CO mainly for Freeform, but the graphics were nice too at that time, compared to CoH's 5 years old look...
(CoH got a smaller revamp though at around the f2p switch, but CO's cel-shade was still better, and it's aging nicely too)
With the Marvel detour aside, CO always felt like as if Cryptic said "CoH Powersets, good design and people love it. Let's see if we can do it even better, more flexible and open!".
Some things lost on the road, which made it different enough from CoH for a lot of veterans to not like it, but I enjoyed the Freeform, the larger zones and better graphics, and Lemuria... when GW2 launched and people were all over for "wow it has underwater combat", CO has already offered an entire underwater realm since years by that time
What I've missed from CoH was the Mastermind (CO's counterpart ain't even close), the villain side (though instead we got the Nemesis system) and most of all, the Architect.
Never understood why Cryptic skipped the Foundry in CO... of course by now it would be gone anyway, just like from STO and Neverwinter, but still, could've provided several years of player-made fun.
Champions Online used to be pretty good. Maybe it even still is if you've got an unlimited budget. I'd probably give it another go at some point if they brought back the subscription option. But needing to pay $250 to repurchase access to characters that I already paid for just isn't tempting. That's not microtransactions.
Lifetime subs were never micro in cost or portrayed as such. CO does occasionally put theirs on sale though. I picked up mine for $200 U.S. in 2012.
At this point, my subscription cost is a little over $22 U.S. per year and falling, which is around $1.85 a month currently. The cost seems a bit micro from that perspective.
One could argue the game is dying, on it's last legs, and so forth, making that option imprudent now. The exact same thing was being said when I bought mine, so I wouldn't put too much stock in that outlook.
I have tried to like this game and played the beta and also when it launched but I always preferred City of Heroes.
CoH was among my main games during the WoW years (never liked WoW ) and I loved it. Switched over to CO mainly for Freeform, but the graphics were nice too at that time, compared to CoH's 5 years old look...
(CoH got a smaller revamp though at around the f2p switch, but CO's cel-shade was still better, and it's aging nicely too)
With the Marvel detour aside, CO always felt like as if Cryptic said "CoH Powersets, good design and people love it. Let's see if we can do it even better, more flexible and open!".
Some things lost on the road, which made it different enough from CoH for a lot of veterans to not like it, but I enjoyed the Freeform, the larger zones and better graphics, and Lemuria... when GW2 launched and people were all over for "wow it has underwater combat", CO has already offered an entire underwater realm since years by that time
What I've missed from CoH was the Mastermind (CO's counterpart ain't even close), the villain side (though instead we got the Nemesis system) and most of all, the Architect.
Never understood why Cryptic skipped the Foundry in CO... of course by now it would be gone anyway, just like from STO and Neverwinter, but still, could've provided several years of player-made fun.
My favourite class is mastermind too.
I suspect I lost a great game by not really trying to play CO but was too distracted at that time. Too many games to play and I gave up too easily. I lost the momentum the best time was when it launched like how City was when it did. The excitement, the crowd, the energy and you never get that back if you miss the launch of a popular game.
If you want to say that it's not whaling because it's something else worse than that, fine.
Maybe you misunderstood me (or just skipped the second part).
a) $200-$300 for a lifetime sub, it's fine and is/was pretty common with MMORPGs.
b) Locking away characters is definitely not fine. But the pricetag alone doesn't make it a whale issue...
Whaling is when players spend a ton of money (willingly) on a game to get ahead of other players, to get some benefits, special items or treatment, etc.
Paying a ton of money, just to get back your own characters, and not even willingly but kinda forced to do it (or the characters stay locked), that's rather blackmail and not whaling.
They handled the change in subscription policy and how it affected freeform character access quite poorly. Players should have been granted permanent access to freeforms they had created prior to that point regardless of their account status at the time.
I suspect I lost a great game by not really trying to play CO but was too distracted at that time.
I wouldn't say that, to be honest
Honeymoon phase is indeed an important time, and the game was good (albeit not great), but the skip of CoH players is understandable as well.
CO had a bumpy launch, leveling was quick enough (decent amount of players capped within the first month, included the box price), and there wasn't much endgame actually (4 raids, if I remember right).
So, it had quite a churn after the first few months I believe, wasn't much of a surprise when it went f2p barely a year later - sure, "unofficially" it switched due to the new competitor on the scene (DCUO's launch the same month), but even without DCUO I'm sure the f2p was inevitable sooner or later...
If you don't mind the missing honeymoon phase, it still could be fun for a "reroll" like the OP did. Maybe match it to one of Defender's training programme (a sort of leveling event, couple of times each year), lots of players create a new alt around those times and rush through the content.
Not similar to the launch rush (people already know the game inside out, and have endgame characters around), but used to be fun and players searching groups a lot for otherwise rarely played group content.
They handled the change in subscription policy and how it affected freeform character access quite poorly. Players should have been granted permanent access to freeforms they had created prior to that point regardless of their account status at the time.
They indeed did... really poor handling.
But as I've said under that linked news article above, at least they recognised it and witheld it for a few weeks until they've made some changes - originally there wasn't even a FF conversion option, just Lifetime sub, or convert the existing characters to ATs...
Agree, keeping the characters after the change would've been the fair solution. They never said why the sub removal was necessary (PWE behind it was just very probable, but not confirmed), maybe the final setup was the most Cryptic could achieve.
There were improvements compared to the original plan, but the locked FF slots and the free character slot takeaway were still on the list at the end, sadly.
Don't worry. The only thing you miss out on by not playing DC Universe Online is carpal tunnel.
DC Universe is second only to CoH, but that's only because it was hamstrung from being in a limbo between a console game with limited chat support and a PC game with annoying controls. It had huge potential, and it had real raids and guilds and a lot of things that hardly any other mmo had, let alone superhero mmo's.
Most importantly, it had quest lines that weren't just fetch and fedex, and featured good voice acting and interesting developments, that pretty much took you all the way through leveling. I mean, that alone makes the leveling part of it one of the best MMO's of all time.
Don't worry. The only thing you miss out on by not playing DC Universe Online is carpal tunnel.
DC Universe is second only to CoH, but that's only because it was hamstrung from being in a limbo between a console game with limited chat support and a PC game with annoying controls. It had huge potential, and it had real raids and guilds and a lot of things that hardly any other mmo had, let alone superhero mmo's.
Most importantly, it had quest lines that weren't just fetch and fedex, and featured good voice acting and interesting developments, that pretty much took you all the way through leveling. I mean, that alone makes the leveling part of it one of the best MMO's of all time.
No matter how much potential a game has, if it is literally, physically painful to play it, then it's a bad game. If they cannot and have not fixed that, then nothing else about the game matters.
If you want to say that it's not whaling because it's something else worse than that, fine.
Maybe you misunderstood me (or just skipped the second part).
a) $200-$300 for a lifetime sub, it's fine and is/was pretty common with MMORPGs.
b) Locking away characters is definitely not fine. But the pricetag alone doesn't make it a whale issue...
Whaling is when players spend a ton of money (willingly) on a game to get ahead of other players, to get some benefits, special items or treatment, etc.
Paying a ton of money, just to get back your own characters, and not even willingly but kinda forced to do it (or the characters stay locked), that's rather blackmail and not whaling.
If you want to craft (I craft in every game I play) to get the better gear, you need components that cost RL money. I found that the top tier of players had either been playing since day one or had purchased the components to make the best gear. Every game I have played that requires gear behind a paywall is just a whale game, no matter how you justify the wording.
As far as the sucked the life out of the game comment, I played CO in Alpha, Beta, and the first few months of release. The game was wildly fun in Alpha, even though it was definitely in old school Alpha condition. But then...
Beta. They 'fixed' several classes as only Jack Emmert can 'fix' them. Later in beta was more 'fixes'. And at the end of beta, more 'fixes'. By the time open beta was released, the game was a shadow of itself fun-wise. I stuck it out for a couple of months and decided that I could not play this !@#$ any more. I was not the only one as many people quit in the first few months. They have fixed a few things after Jack left, but then I found out it had a cash shop. When I went back a few years ago, the cash shop with paywall advancement was still there, I quit again, this time for good. Now, if you want freeform characters? It costs $250? I've heard plenty and I am having more than enough fun in CoH.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
Comments
Lifetime subs were never micro in cost or portrayed as such. CO does occasionally put theirs on sale though. I picked up mine for $200 U.S. in 2012.
At this point, my subscription cost is a little over $22 U.S. per year and falling, which is around $1.85 a month currently. The cost seems a bit micro from that perspective.
One could argue the game is dying, on it's last legs, and so forth, making that option imprudent now. The exact same thing was being said when I bought mine, so I wouldn't put too much stock in that outlook.
I suspect I lost a great game by not really trying to play CO but was too distracted at that time. Too many games to play and I gave up too easily. I lost the momentum the best time was when it launched like how City was when it did. The excitement, the crowd, the energy and you never get that back if you miss the launch of a popular game.
They handled the change in subscription policy and how it affected freeform character access quite poorly. Players should have been granted permanent access to freeforms they had created prior to that point regardless of their account status at the time.
DC Universe is second only to CoH, but that's only because it was hamstrung from being in a limbo between a console game with limited chat support and a PC game with annoying controls. It had huge potential, and it had real raids and guilds and a lot of things that hardly any other mmo had, let alone superhero mmo's.
Most importantly, it had quest lines that weren't just fetch and fedex, and featured good voice acting and interesting developments, that pretty much took you all the way through leveling. I mean, that alone makes the leveling part of it one of the best MMO's of all time.
As far as the sucked the life out of the game comment, I played CO in Alpha, Beta, and the first few months of release. The game was wildly fun in Alpha, even though it was definitely in old school Alpha condition. But then...
Beta. They 'fixed' several classes as only Jack Emmert can 'fix' them. Later in beta was more 'fixes'. And at the end of beta, more 'fixes'. By the time open beta was released, the game was a shadow of itself fun-wise. I stuck it out for a couple of months and decided that I could not play this !@#$ any more. I was not the only one as many people quit in the first few months. They have fixed a few things after Jack left, but then I found out it had a cash shop. When I went back a few years ago, the cash shop with paywall advancement was still there, I quit again, this time for good. Now, if you want freeform characters? It costs $250? I've heard plenty and I am having more than enough fun in CoH.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!