Champions Online - Page 7

Better balance, I guess. Though honestly that's it, and that's really the problem with Champions. It's basically the same thing as City of Heroes, and that's a creaky old game that never really grew or changed significantly in terms of gameplay or design. Sure, they gave people that mission editor thing eventually, but that's pretty much just a cosmetic thing that ultimately isn't really a game changing mechanic. But Champions feels like playing a game that came out like six years ago.

Ironically, the feature that got me the most excited about CO -- the lack of "classes" and the ability to choose any power -- ended up being its downfall. In CoH, sure the power sets didn't let you play a tank that could shoot fireballs, but the powers in each set worked really well together, and you really had to work at it to gimp yourself. In CO, you can be a super-strong ice blaster with a chainsaw on your arm who shoots mind blasts at someone. It's way too easy to build a totally over-powered -- and totally under-powered -- character. And CoH encourage more grouping because one character couldn't do everything by themselves power-wise. You could tank or debuff, but not both. It led to more of a sense of community on the servers, because you sort of needed to rely on other players more for some of the content.

Oh yeah, and City of Heroes' servers weren't still going down a month after launch. In fact, CoH had probably the smoothest launch of any MMO I've played (with LOTRO being a close second).

Yeah, they had 2 really bad server crashes over the weekend. One of them required a rollback of about a half hour of gameplay time, too. I LOVED having to repeat that content...

Seriously, though: try the MC Halloween content, especially at night when more people are online. It was easily the most entertaining experience that I've had on the game yet.

I tried a little bit of it and it was okay. I just don't want to risk getting pulled back in again. I've made the break and I'm ready to move on. This is the equivalent of "Let's have one last drink" with a bad ex. We'll get drunk, we'll end up in bed, and then I'll feel guilty and have to dump her all over again.

Just use it hard and rough for a night and get it out of your system.

OK, I just made it into the underwater zone called Lemuria yesterday. THIS zone should have been one of the first areas that you go to (replacing Canada or the Desert), as it's gorgeous to look at AND is fun to navigate. Unlike the other zones which are fairly 2 dimensional, Lemuria is totally 3 dimensional and requires you to be fully aware of what's going on above and below you. You have to be KIRK here, not KHAN, and I'm actually having quite a bit of fun playing in this area.

And it only took you what, a billion hours to get to the decent content?

Not really, Brad. I mainly dabble in the game here and there, usually for an hour at a time. A focused gameplay effort probably would have gotten me to this point within a week or so.

By no means am I defending this game, though.

A billion hours.

They've opened up the starter area (the Qularr invasion) as a free trial, similar to how they did with Warhammer Online. You can only play 2 characters and there's a level cap of 15. Not sure how good a tool this is, because if I had to stay in that starter area until level 15, I'd shoot myself, so it doesn't seem like a good advertisement for the game. Accurate maybe, but not good.

You've exhausted all content by the time that you hit level 4 or 5. Unless your idea of an awesome night of gaming is to endlessly repeat the 'Ironclad Defense' open mission again and again, you're gonna be pissed.

And having to hear Ironclad spout his dialog for more than a level or two is enough to make you never want to touch the game again.

That's peanuts compared to Defender doing his spiel inside the headquarters.

Shut down this beacon! It's broadcasting a signal that is driving the Qularr mad!
We have to shut down ALL beacons!
Shut down this beacon! It's broadcasting a signal that is driving the Qularr mad!
We have to shut down ALL beacons!
Shut down this beacon! It's broadcasting a signal that is driving the Qularr mad!
We have to shut down ALL beacons!
Shut down this beacon! It's broadcasting a signal that is driving the Qularr mad!
We have to shut down ALL beacons!
Shut down this beacon! It's broadcasting a signal that is driving the Qularr mad!
We have to shut down ALL beacons!

Someone pointed out elsewhere that unless they make more powers available in the tutorial, including travel powers, this trial is next to useless.

Well I'm assuming that all the character creation options are available?

If so I know I'll re-download it and play with it from time to time. And I'm sure it will suck in a lot of new players when they end up making something they really love.

They need to do something. For the hell of it (I was bored), I reactivated my account on Sunday to check things out. Apart from a really stupid 'Misfit Toys' Christmas event going on now, there's no new content. They've re-balanced a few of the powersets, but so what? There's still really nothing to do but repeat the same damned quests over and over again.

My SG appeared to be totally offline (probably permanently)
My friends list was totally offline (probably permanently)

It's a dead game.

eta: Zombie has the right idea. 90% of the 'fun' that this game delivers is in the character creation process. You have to love a game that allows you to push the boundaries of 'good taste' with the costumes that you can give your female champions. Hell, you can almost send her out to fight crime with a dildo up her ass.

Now that might get me back into the game.

The sexual/profanity filter for the hero names isn't really up to snuff either. My Darkness hero, PINK TACO, is still going strong.

So, at this point how many folks are optimistic about DC Universe Online?

I'm not. I've come to the conclusion that the superhero format just isn't for me.

So they're finally adding content, in the form of a new zone for levels 37 to 40.

And you have to pay for it.

Glad I quit this when I did.

hahahahah how do cryptic runned MMO

And you have to pay for it??????? Seriously, you have to wonder what kind of mutant business model Cryptic is operating under.

A lot of people are assuming it's a precursor to moving to a free-to-play format.

They need to do something, I guess. Lord knows that they're losing subscribers at a fairly epic rate.

Jesus, the Kitchen Sink patch they've been talking about with two months worth of game fixes has apparently caused lag in all zones, locked some players in the Lemuria zone, and totally gimped crafting by not producing any items when you drop materials on the crafting tables.

Turn off the lights, kids.

EDIT: OMG, there's currently a bug where supergroups are referred to as fleets. As in Star Trek Online. Good god.

Cryptic blinks, the expansion will be free.

Just received an email from Cryptic this morning.

Wanna bet that they disconnect the servers within a year?

So you're basically paying for two months and getting one month free. But even at the discount, I'm not sure I'd want to pay $30 to see the new stuff.

I seriously have no idea why more of these struggling MMORPGs don't follow the Dungeons And Dragons Online model. I can't say that I was hardcore into DDO but with it being free and having micro-transactions they managed to get 10$ out of me that they wouldn't have otherwise.

Same thing with 'Guild Wars'. The population on there is still pretty huge.

They're having a free weekend next weekend. Totally unlimited, open to new and returning players. I might take a look, since it won't cost me anything but time.

Judas...Warcraft awaits you.

Cryptic just announced that they will be going to a FREE TO PLAY format starting in 2011. The FREE TO PLAY beta starts on November 9th.

I'm not surprised. I may even re-install the game for a bit to see if it's actually become fun.

One word of caution: if you opt for free play, you'll have to use archetypes which have their power advancement pre-set. And if you are a former subscriber and have existing characters, you can either pay to keep playing them as normal or play for free and have them converted to an archetype.

Ah yes, the details. Well, truth be told, I tried to keep all of my characters defined within their own archetypes...2112, my electricity guy, only had one or two powers that weren't electical based. Pink Taco, my darkness chic, had all of her powers within the sorcery domain. Converting them to arechetypes probably wouldn't stress me out too much.

You gonna re-up with Gibralter, Richard?

Honestly, this morning I started downloading the client because, having been playing City of Heroes again*, I thought I'd re-up check this out. Part of me wants to wait until the F2P starts, but I may still go ahead.

*And man, if you want a particular super-hero name, you'd better get into the game at launch. I deleted my old CoH characters a while back and it's been torture trying to come up with decent names for my new characters that aren't already taken.

I just got an email from Cryptic:

 

Greetings, Champion!

Great news! The Free-to-Play Beta has been going very well. So well, in fact, that we have a release date in mind...

Champions Online: Free for All will launch Tuesday, January 25, 2011!

 

Richard, didn't you try this out in the beta?

I wasn't in the beta for the free to play version, no.