Rob you know me a long time now. COH was good but the game lacked foresight and you could literally FINISH it, ie do all the quests and max your gear quite easily. (Until more content was added) Champions online went a little more traditional MMO style and fleshed things out and it had some fun events and I had a TON of fun with it. DCUO was backed by a major company and had the backing of giant IPs to go with it but aside from a tad more polish didn't do that much more for the Genre.
The problem is with Superhero games more then i think fantasy or SCI FI, the uniqueness of being a super hero gets swallowed up by classes and whatnot, when you have 100xfire blaster guys, and 100 x armor guys and 100x ice guys etc. it has a huge impact on a game that all of a sudden you feel kind of blah when the "super" heroes outnumber regular npcs 10 to 1 and don't feel so special.
Also Marvel is an ARPG that tries to include MMO aspects but as of late has become a huge sinking ship and their so called "rebrand" is yet another failed attempt to garner interest..and again we talk alot, you know how i LOVED MH but it is a mess atm.
Inspired by this article, I jumped back in. I find that the game is still alive, although my favorite part, low-level PVP, is dead. And without archetype PVP, I do not know what the point of archetypes is. Most players I meet seem to be freeforms.
Also most players seem to be bypassing the open-world missions and instead leveling in instanced alerts. There is something to be said for alerts -- they make it a lot easier to play in a team -- but they do sort of kill the "massive" part of the MMO.
As a fan of the Hero System pen and paper RPG games since the mid 80s I was bitterly disappointed by this game. Its not terrible mind you, but thanks the Cryptic's corner cutting, get em out move em quick, development style it came out a much lesser game than it could have.
You'll never have Hero System online. NEVER. ...And that's good.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Inspired by this article, I jumped back in. I find that the game is still alive, although my favorite part, low-level PVP, is dead. And without archetype PVP, I do not know what the point of archetypes is. Most players I meet seem to be freeforms.
I don't pvp so no issue for me, but yep, pvp (not only the low-level one) is mostly dead - except the non-stop e-peen measuring duels at the Powerhouse of course . And except Onslaught, but "technically" that's not pvp, more like a token-based game mechanic for nice rewards.
Actually, even if I usually don't pvp in RPGs, I like fun mechanics... and in that sense it's a bit sad that even BITE and Zombie Apocalypse was quite empty during the last Blood Moon, those are fun and since they're like standalone minigames, are quite "unaffected" by the players' builds and power levels. You're right, there's no pvp-honed AT on the list, ATs were created in mind of their roles in group PvE. You can level them up by focusing on dps, but you still won't last against a FF And you see that many FFs around currently, because a couple months ago there was a FF slot giveaway, lots of people made plenty of alt accounts just for grabbing the free FF slots...
Also most players seem to be bypassing the open-world missions and instead leveling in instanced alerts. There is something to be said for alerts -- they make it a lot easier to play in a team -- but they do sort of kill the "massive" part of the MMO.
Yep, that's why I suggested to Rob in my post above to avoid using Alerts for the first time, or else he'll miss out a huge chunk of the game. Alerts are great for leveling an alt - and CO is a heavily alt-friendly game - but on the flipside the system made the leveling zones quite empty. Which is sad, CO has some funny questlines and questing mechanics
(edit: dropping here @Grakulen ; maybe he just forgot about the project)
I don't think CO stood the test of time. I'd argue that it flopped on release, held a few die-hards, and has been in maintenance mode for years. I have no clue why it's still up and running. I checked it out a few months back and it was only marginally better than at launch. After CoH, CO was such a major disappointment.
It launched lacking content and buggy. Seems they stuck with it long enough to fix some of the bugs and fill in levelling content.
Crafting and vehicles... couple of revamps of systems...
Some issue type content. Some events.
Vibora Bay, which they initially wanted to charge people for. Keep in mind this was before they went F2P/PW, etc.
All in all, I'd say there's about 2 years worth of additional development on an 8 year old game, the most of which was done the first couple years. it would be pretty easy to come to the conclusion that CO was the guinea pig for STO after which it was all but abandoned. Pity those poor folks who bought lifer subs...
CoH, on the other hand... so much good in that game; it very much deserved a sequel. The freedom that the enhancement system gave is something I very much miss in newer MMO's.
All in all, I'd say there's about 2 years worth of additional development on an 8 year old game, the most of which was done the first couple years. it would be pretty easy to come to the conclusion that CO was the guinea pig for STO after which it was all but abandoned.
That's fairly accurate... but in the last months PWE seems to drop a few bones (dev money) to CO again, which is cool. (meaning Onslaught, TA, new powers and cosmetics, new ATs, sidekicks, and also some marketing which is quite surprising, based on the previous years of ignoring the game alltogether...)
It's still just the dumb little brother of STO money-wise, but at least there's some development... the ice-themed pack was nice. Rocker is a bit odd, but the cosmetics are cool. Btw. FoxbatCon just finished today
@Grakulen - what happened to these articles? I was really enjoying the first few you did
They just became too much of a time commitment and I was working two columns a week at the time. It just wasn't sustainable then. They will happen again in the future. It just won't be that consistent.
@Grakulen - what happened to these articles? I was really enjoying the first few you did
They just became too much of a time commitment and I was working two columns a week at the time. It just wasn't sustainable then. They will happen again in the future. It just won't be that consistent.
Sorry.
I understand, and look forward to the next one, whenever that may be. :awesome:
They were definitely enjoyable to read and catch up with some old gems, even to the point where I revisited them myself after being inspired by the articles
Comments
The problem is with Superhero games more then i think fantasy or SCI FI, the uniqueness of being a super hero gets swallowed up by classes and whatnot, when you have 100xfire blaster guys, and 100 x armor guys and 100x ice guys etc. it has a huge impact on a game that all of a sudden you feel kind of blah when the "super" heroes outnumber regular npcs 10 to 1 and don't feel so special.
Also Marvel is an ARPG that tries to include MMO aspects but as of late has become a huge sinking ship and their so called "rebrand" is yet another failed attempt to garner interest..and again we talk alot, you know how i LOVED MH but it is a mess atm.
Inspired by this article, I jumped back in. I find that the game is still alive, although my favorite part, low-level PVP, is dead. And without archetype PVP, I do not know what the point of archetypes is. Most players I meet seem to be freeforms.
Also most players seem to be bypassing the open-world missions and instead leveling in instanced alerts. There is something to be said for alerts -- they make it a lot easier to play in a team -- but they do sort of kill the "massive" part of the MMO.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
I don't pvp so no issue for me, but yep, pvp (not only the low-level one) is mostly dead - except the non-stop e-peen measuring duels at the Powerhouse of course
Actually, even if I usually don't pvp in RPGs, I like fun mechanics... and in that sense it's a bit sad that even BITE and Zombie Apocalypse was quite empty during the last Blood Moon, those are fun and since they're like standalone minigames, are quite "unaffected" by the players' builds and power levels.
You're right, there's no pvp-honed AT on the list, ATs were created in mind of their roles in group PvE. You can level them up by focusing on dps, but you still won't last against a FF
Yep, that's why I suggested to Rob in my post above to avoid using Alerts for the first time, or else he'll miss out a huge chunk of the game. Alerts are great for leveling an alt - and CO is a heavily alt-friendly game - but on the flipside the system made the leveling zones quite empty. Which is sad, CO has some funny questlines and questing mechanics
(edit: dropping here @Grakulen ;
Crafting and vehicles... couple of revamps of systems...
Some issue type content. Some events.
Vibora Bay, which they initially wanted to charge people for. Keep in mind this was before they went F2P/PW, etc.
All in all, I'd say there's about 2 years worth of additional development on an 8 year old game, the most of which was done the first couple years. it would be pretty easy to come to the conclusion that CO was the guinea pig for STO after which it was all but abandoned. Pity those poor folks who bought lifer subs...
CoH, on the other hand... so much good in that game; it very much deserved a sequel. The freedom that the enhancement system gave is something I very much miss in newer MMO's.
It's still just the dumb little brother of STO money-wise, but at least there's some development... the ice-themed pack was nice. Rocker is a bit odd, but the cosmetics are cool. Btw. FoxbatCon just finished today
Sorry.
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They were definitely enjoyable to read and catch up with some old gems, even to the point where I revisited them myself after being inspired by the articles