My one fear when thinking about purchasing this game was that it wasn't going to last very long. But I went ahead and bought it anyways, because those black outlines looked SOOO cool. Well it turns out I didn't even end up playing with the black outlines on. They are a post processing effect that slows down my FPS just a little bit (8800 GT 1gb) and to be honest, the game looks just as good without them. So i purchased the game 3 days after launch, because i was hesitant. I had a blast at first, the character creation system is really impressive. I mean, imagine anything you want and its yours. Except maybe demon heads. If your creating a demon youve got three options, human face, skull, or deep-sea monster face. However, the dazzle of a sweet character lasts up until you realize how much power selection gimps your persona.

Here is an example. I made a character who looked exactly like the NPC's in the game wearing "power armor." Basically soldiers with huge cyber combat suits. The only difference was my character had his power armor mask off, giving him some uniqueness compared to the NPCs. I chose him to be a melee character, who uses punches to do his business. I started out using the might powerset. This was my second character with might. The difference was my first char had a cyborg'ish name and i wanted a human character so rerolled. After going to the powerhouse to add new powers, I started tinkering around to perfect my character for pve. Here comes the probs. My character was supposed to be a soldier in a combat suit, so hes either going to punch or shoot missiles etc. out of his suit. Since he was a melee character and I already had a ranged combat char (munitions) I needed ot keep him punching. So I get all the melee punching powers I need. Only problem now is that my character is in need of a melee range aoe for when I get multiple henchmen( very weak mobs) on me. The only options I have are a fire aoe, some magic stuff, or swords. Keep in mind i wanted to keep my character on a roleplayable track. So he starts out punching enemies, then goes into wipping out his laser sword which was kind of pushing it but it was a power armor ability so its not too bad. Then he goes from the laser sword to a full blown regular sword in order to complete the ability I want done.

That is the big character persona killer that CO has. If you want your character to do something from a certain power then you have to deal with your character going from using magic to machine guns, to lasers coming out of their eyes. I am a power gamer in MMORPG's so basically if you want your character to be all it can be the way you want it, your gonna have a character who just uses a bunch of random stuff in battle. Theres not much keeping your character in line with a certain power set. I actually liked city of heroes power sets better even if it was just a class system.

Travel powers were a hole lot of fun when I first got mine. I literally spent about 2 hours playing with all the different travel powers before selecting one. Swinging is awesome, but its pretty much useless for PvE and PVP. Teleport is hands down the best travel power IMO. You can teleport away from enemies at anytime, basically a jump back into stealth emergency move. Then you get to fly in any direction. You can teleport over and over spamming it in order to fly anywhere you wish. Unless your planning on shooting at stuff while flying, this makes teleport just as good as flight but more. So my munitions character has teleport because hes kind of a heavy damage dealer rogue type dude. It works well for him, his premise is he was born with teleportation and had a crappy childhood and in turn became an assasin as an adult. What more lucrative way to use your teleportation than to get into tight security places and kill someone then dissapear without a trace. So he knows how to use guns and all that. Now I have my melee character with the power armor. I want teleport on him too because its just so damn OP. But hes just a regular joe with power armor, so in a roleplaying sense, my choices are rocket jump, jumping(hulk style), or rocket flight. Swinging could work since its just a grappling hook but then hed be a super gimp.

This seems like a rant yes and it is. I usually don't post alot on this site but I do I come to the site alot and ive played many many MMORPGS. Before Champions Online i played Darkfall for 5 months. Now Im reinstalling Everquest 2 as I was writing the beginning of this.

My point though is, the quest grinding got boring, I've had almost no social interaction in the game so far because of instancing and because I've been able to solo everything if u just buy the right powers and know how to use block. The PVP was so boring that I could barely do the quests requiring u to complete some arena matches. Its been 15 days and I canceled my subscription. City of Heroes only lasted me the 15 day trial, and i never bought it. If CO has some long term appeal PVE or PVP wise, I just haven't seen it yet.

For those curious, I have a lv 25 munitions/teleport char, lv 15 melee/superjump, and a lv 10 darkness/flight guy.

One last thing, if you play a 2nd character expect to do every single quest over again. Once you play one character youve done all of the content. The game is lacking content. I only leveld to 25 but all ive seen is 3 world maps. Theres the desert, canada winter wilderness, and the city. Everything happens on those 3 maps the quest line just bounces u back and forth between them all.

This is all just my opinions but Im just trying to shed some light on the game experience for other future buyers. I've played everything from Darkfall to WoW to EQ1/2 to EVE to AOC, and even dozens of F2P korean grindfests. Been MMORPG'ing for the last 13 years, so I have seen and experienced diversity in my games. CO may have some sweet end game content but I havent seen anything hinting toward it in the game or on the CO forums. End game may be great but if the player cancel's their sub before getting there then whats the point.

Anyways, /rant_off

Now for a well fitting quote to foreshadow:

"Flame On!"

Good read.  I experienced everything in your post in four days of the Beta and un-installed Champions Online before it ended. you just explained it much better than I could.

The only thing I would like to add is the 100 people zones making it a solo game.  It's in your post but that is the killer for me by far.  Like what are they thinking charging $15 a month for a single player shooter with people around you !!

Originally posted by page

The only thing I would like to add is the 100 people zones making it a solo game.

Is it just me or does this not really make sense? I mean, how can it be a solo game with a 100 people in the zone? Either you have a SERIOUS multiboxing system with a crap-load of accounts or you were playing with a lot of other people.

But to the OP, you can make some great concept characters, but sometimes you need to get a filler power or two just to open up new tiers. By level 26 you will have opened up every tier from every set. Since you said your highest character was level 25 you may not have experienced this yet. I have many characters that needed to take blocking powers and some support powers early on just to open up tiers so I could get the more thematic powers I wanted.

I can identify with what he is saying on the limitations of building a type of character then supplying him with themed powers being difficult.  It is also one of the most solitary MMOs I have ever played, whether the instances or what, chat is usually devoid of conversation and there is really so little need to ever group it just kills the first M part of MMO.

But what gets me, and ultimately will have me giving up on the game, is how clunky it is.  They design this action type combat but they have a non responsive or poorly responsive interface that is totally not up to the task.  It reminds me, though I am not saying this is the case, of those great console games that get a cheap port to the PC.  IN the end the great game is all there but they so poorly port the control system that it breaks the flow of the gameplay and makes for a bad game as a result.

Originally posted by AgtSmith

But what gets me, and ultimately will have me giving up on the game, is how clunky it is.  They design this action type combat but they have a non responsive or poorly responsive interface that is totally not up to the task.  It reminds me, though I am not saying this is the case, of those great console games that get a cheap port to the PC.  IN the end the great game is all there but they so poorly port the control system that it breaks the flow of the gameplay and makes for a bad game as a result.

I've heard this complaint before, but I haven't experienced any clunkiness with the controls.

I PvP'ed a lot in the 31-40 tier where it's rather hardcore and I feel like I have a very good level of control over my characters.  They do what I want when I need it...can I ask for anything more?

Maybe it's an issue with the graphics or some other technical issue?

Yeah, I'm also losing interest in the game. It was fun for the first 20 levels, but then I started to get bored with it. It was becoming harder and harder to find available quests, and I couldn't even wear what I was getting as quest rewards (which I hear was somewhat fixed today).

For now, I've got CO on the backburner. I'll jump back in every now and then when I want a change from Ryzom.

Felt basically the same in the OB. You ended up mixing all kind of powers, so the idea to make a 1-themed guy is not really possible, now even more with the nerfs. No really group oriented content in the game, and nerfing to force grouping is really no solution. I don't see anything but a big re-work save this game from falling into a tiny niche. And I have not seen THAT ever happen in a MMO before.

Sadly I canceled my subscription as well. This MMO is brilliant in some places and highly addictive but shallow in many other places

I fully agree with the review although I really loved they went classless. I am going to keep my eye on it but I'm pretty disappointed.

Its weird at first everything is so great. Then you notice more and more the game has NO CONTENT. I mean none. Its barely enough for 1 playthrough if even that.

The pvp is lackluster

I dunno I want to hang with this game. I love making alts in the creator. But once i step in the world I feel like they insulting my intelligence by making me do the EXACT same quests. There is no variety.

At least the buffed pvp xp a little. But I feel violated when I go in there to BASH and such. Everyone is just teleporting when they get half health. Worst pvp ive seen in a long time. Fun, but horribly broken.

City of Heroes was a step up in almost every way. But I love the open system. Well it could be better, but having the freedom to pick powers is great. Toio bad the devs rushed this game out a year too early. I still think it can be something really great given a year. Im gonna keep my eye on it but I expect soooooo many nerfs it will make city of nerfs look like nothing

Btw OP I disagree with you on Might powerset. My main character was Might and only reason I chenged him into Claws cause it fit his concept better

But Might is a solid set. For AOE you have havoc stomp and other powers. Defiance aint a bad defensive.

IT's really solid I have no idea why you felt compelled to leave the framework. Might is hella powerful. My Might char was bout 20 something when I respeced him into Claws. But that was only do to concept reasons. IT just vibed with his concept better

Originally posted by Yunbei

Felt basically the same in the OB. You ended up mixing all kind of powers, so the idea to make a 1-themed guy is not really possible, now even more with the nerfs. No really group oriented content in the game, and nerfing to force grouping is really no solution. I don't see anything but a big re-work save this game from falling into a tiny niche. And I have not seen THAT ever happen in a MMO before.

Well no one stays in one framework tho mainly because you maxout a single framework in your 20s. I know my electric has like all his powers except gigabolt. Most folks will feel compelled to step out and grab a defensive but you can make defensives vibe with a concept by changing the colors.

That was the whole point. For instance, to get Regeneration to vibe with my elecxtric I simply change the power. So for my concept since my char is composed of lightning he can also use this energy to repair himself

Additionally, in my case I couldve gotten by w/o a passive defense if I used the holds actively and took the advantage to let my energy absorb impacts

So I disagree that you have to leave your concept. For min/max, yes maybe you will but if u want to remain true to a concept then you can do really easily. just alter power colors and its really easy to fit most things into a concept

I can relate to everything you're saying. Except I laste about 9 days before uninstalling it. Something in my gut told me that I would get bored of the game when I was trying to decide whether or not to buy it. But I spect my $50 and now I regret it. I tried almost every power set then I found two that I really liked, claws and dual swords.

Claw and dual swords rocked, I love it, make ti to lvl15 and then I went ot Millenium City. Thats when everything went down hill. I died way too much just off a group of henchmen. I quit claws and did dual swords after that. Same thing happend, got to MC and hated it.

After trying most every, I never made it past MC because extreme boredom set in. Great idea, for a game Icoudln't stand it after lvl15.

Well i got a alt to level 30 tonight and i really haven't found this content gap that everyone is talking about, especially with the latest patch giving out more content to places i didn't even see listed here, like monster island, lemuria and more lairs amongst the hidden lands. It seems like there's always this trend going on with mmo forums and that is the bash wagon, once one person starts it up most people just hop on the wagon. Come on people lets form our own opinions.

Originally posted by prototypo

Well i got a alt to level 30 tonight and i really haven't found this content gap that everyone is talking about, especially with the latest patch giving out more content to places i didn't even see listed here, like monster island, lemuria and more lairs amongst the hidden lands. It seems like there's always this trend going on with mmo forums and that is the bash wagon, once one person starts it up most people just hop on the wagon. Come on people lets form our own opinions.

Many people have experienced the content gap at 31, myself included. I had no missions, nothing on the crime computer, and no amount of map scouring would produce a "!". I ended up grinding the PQs and beach in MI until I hit 32 (awful, terrible grind, mobs are negligible xp). Once I hit 32, new contacts opened up, and I havent had a gap since. My main is now at 36, all my 5 or so missions I have are 38 lvl or so.

Lemuria is a nightmare for me personally. The rubber banding is very bad, sometimes I swim the same 100 feet or so 3-4 times before I actually get there. I avoid Lemuria like the plague unless I have absolutely no choice. I like the "swimming in a fish tank" look of the zone, but the lag and rubber banding is just a game breaker there currently.

I posted a tool for finding quests to overcome the lack of content.  It really is an amazing tool.  It is way more effective then the crappy crime computer which misses tons of quests.

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/254076/Great-link-for-finding-quests.html

Originally posted by prototypo

Well i got a alt to level 30 tonight and i really haven't found this content gap that everyone is talking about, especially with the latest patch giving out more content to places i didn't even see listed here, like monster island, lemuria and more lairs amongst the hidden lands. It seems like there's always this trend going on with mmo forums and that is the bash wagon, once one person starts it up most people just hop on the wagon. Come on people lets form our own opinions.

Try playing through the game on more than one character. doing the same exact line of quests over and over and over is sickening almost. No variety, no freedom of choice.

Unfortunately any and all imagination in this game comes to a crashing halt the moment you step from the creator. Far far far too much bias is placed on what you do in the first 5% of gametime and way too much reliance is placed on you feeling wowed by your own avatar throughout the game. There is simply no conviction in the world, no commitment to the comicbook theme and as a result everything deteriorates into a painfully souless grind even more quickly than any other mmo you can care to mention.

Like Hellgate and Tabula Rasa there's nothing intrisically wrong with the game but its clearly a constructed from a checklist of features rather than an attempt to realise the comicbook theme in mmo form. As it relies soley on preexisting mmo staples; for anyone who's played an mmo before there's simply nothing new to experience, the been there, done that feeling is all to apparent early on. In terms of involvement and immersion this is probably the worse mmo ever created, the integration of the theme and the world are an afterthought and one that doesn't have any real priority hence even if you can ignore the hum drum familiarity of gameplay theres nothing deeper to engage or distract you.

A sad and frankly unexpected failure from a studio that should know better.

That is exactly what turned me off of this game in beta. I loved the character customization, and the fun teleport powers, but after making a ton of characters in beta, and having to do the same quests over and over along with never talking to anyone because you could solo turned me off also.  I played CoH longer because it was more fun to group up with people and do missions. Lately MMO's are not multi player at all.

It is a very shallow game (at the moment, it could change, years from now),  needs more meat on its bones.   Can get to the level cap in under 72 hours playing time.   Everyone seems to gravitate towards the same powers, a lot of unorginal costumes (ive seen more demons, robots and western/cowboy types than anything).   This is a game that I suggest waiting another year for, for those on the fence about it.

Originally posted by stormseekaz

My point though is, the quest grinding got boring, I've had almost no social interaction in the game so far because of instancing and because I've been able to solo everything if u just buy the right powers and know how to use block. The PVP was so boring that I could barely do the quests requiring u to complete some arena matches.  

 

 

This was the deal breaker for me, I have never in my life played a MMO where noone ever freaking Grouped or needed to group.  I cannot believe the same people that made COH/COV a very group friendly MMO made this....

I used to think that I was ready to be done with the old ball and chain of the 'class system'  that is standard is so many MMO's but I now see the light.  I see now that that same 'class system' encouranged you to group with others since you could not do EVERYTHING yourself, you needed others to help fill in the areas that you were weak.  Be it CC/Healing/Damage or whatever some area you NEEDED others to fill a role that you could not, but in this game you don't need ANYONE since you can just make a character that can do all of those things themself.  I think this might be why PVP in this game is so horrible as well, everyone can be a tank/healer/CC/Damage dealer which makes them incredibly hard to kill.  Tatics don't don't matter in the PVP in this game, zerging one player does since that is the only way to kill most of these guys that pick the FOTM powers.  And then if they have half a brain they will just Teleport away (and please don't talk to me about the skills that take away travel powers for 3 seconds...lol).

Anyways you add all of that to the fact that the UI interface is laggy as hell (not as bad as Warhammer was in the beggining but bad enough) and you just have a totally bad playing expierience for most people.  I mean when I press a key I expect that power to work I should not have to keep pressing it 4 or 5 times or wait 3 seconds for the UI to recongized that I pressed it...

This game could have been so great but they failed in alot of fundlemental areas, and I do not see anyway they can recover.  This MMO is flawed to its core people, its not like a AOC or Warhammer that can be fixed with a few patches.  If they want to fix this MMO they will have to change the complete dynamics of this game, and thats not going to happen.

Originally posted by Tinybina

This was the deal breaker for me, I have never in my life played a MMO where noone ever freaking Grouped or needed to group.  I cannot believe the same people that made COH/COV a very group friendly MMO made this....

Yeah, it is a huge problem.  It reminds me of DDO at launch in a similar way, the DEVs just so miscalculated the difficulty scaling and amount of content that inside of a couple weeks the game was badly 'beaten'.  Now they are making things worse, it seems, running through wildly and nerfing things to try to simulate difficulty which only amplifies the repetition and content problems (much like DDO did in creating all sorts of artificial 'difficulty' early on).

Originally posted by Tinybina

I used to think that I was ready to be done with the old ball and chain of the 'class system'  that is standard is so many MMO's but I now see the light.

Two words, Fallen Earth.  I just started it and it is really interesting and it is a skill based open game.  It is also a massive plus to be in a world themed (post apocalyptic type world, reminds me of the game Stalker in the feel and look of the world) so differently than every other MMO.  FE has some issues but the core is great and they are already patching up those surface issues so I think this game is going to do well over time.

Originally posted by Tinybina

 

Anyways you add all of that to the fact that the UI interface is laggy as hell (not as bad as Warhammer was in the beggining but bad enough) and you just have a totally bad playing expierience for most people.  I mean when I press a key I expect that power to work I should not have to keep pressing it 4 or 5 times or wait 3 seconds for the UI to recongized that I pressed it...

This is what ultimately did the game in for me, it was so clunky and flakey it just played terribly.  Gameplay attempts to be very dynamic but the interface is so inconsistent and so poorly designed that it breaks gameplay.  So often I would be using a discharge skill to have it just end min wind down or use other skills that would flake out and not work in a timely manner or consistently.  I said it before, though I mean it only descriptively not as a possible explanation, but the game plays and feels like a bad port of a console game.  You know those games you get where you seem to always be fighting to control the action or simply not have what you need to do so reliably.

Originally posted by Tinybina

This game could have been so great but they failed in alot of fundlemental areas, and I do not see anyway they can recover.  This MMO is flawed to its core people, its not like a AOC or Warhammer that can be fixed with a few patches.  If they want to fix this MMO they will have to change the complete dynamics of this game, and thats not going to happen. 

I agree, they had a great concept I think, though their itemization ideas seem as flawed as AoC's where to start out, but they just executed terribly and the whole game falls flat as a result.  I also agree it is a flaw of core design, or at least execution of the core game, and not fixable especially since it is live.  If it was still unreleased it could be fixed but all they can do now is play defense and defense doesn't developed the game it just reacts to the latest issue(s) much like happened with SWG and as I mentioned DDO.  The game's core dynamics do not work and the content and difficulty issues make fixing that terribly unlikely while the game is live.

---

Originally posted by Aganazer

---

Originally posted by page

The only thing I would like to add is the 100 people zones making it a solo game.

---

 
Is it just me or does this not really make sense? I mean, how can it be a solo game with a 100 people in the zone? Either you have a SERIOUS multiboxing system with a crap-load of accounts or you were playing with a lot of other people.

---

Let me explain this then. I have experienced that the 100 player limit is quite low. Probably set because that's what the servers can handle. It's unlikely that all the servers will have 100 filled. There's a few, but the majority are spread out through various servers... I think their ideal balance is about 75. That's what I see when i look at how many are on one instance. Using Millennium City as an example, at any given time, people are usually at:
tailor (costume changes) - 10 people
Helipad (zone entrance/exit) - 5
Bank - 5
Crafting stations (the outdoor ones) - 7
Total players on the zone - 70-80 ish.

With that, that leaves about 40-50 to be out doing quests. Also there are 3 different level areas, 15-18, 20-23, 26-28.... so about 15 or so people in the area that you are in doing quests. Also, I didn't count those that are idle. How many of those 15... are not idle, are open to do quests, even if they have done them themselves.

They either need to implement a more powerful server, or do what most seamless games do and have Millennium City split into 4 servers. No way would i suggest that you have to "load" each level, but make those 4 areas seamless to each other.

---

Originally posted by AgtSmith
This is what ultimately did the game in for me, it was so clunky and flakey it just played terribly.  Gameplay attempts to be very dynamic but the interface is so inconsistent and so poorly designed that it breaks gameplay.  So often I would be using a discharge skill to have it just end min wind down or use other skills that would flake out and not work in a timely manner or consistently.  I said it before, though I mean it only descriptively not as a possible explanation, but the game plays and feels like a bad port of a console game.  You know those games you get where you seem to always be fighting to control the action or simply not have what you need to do so reliably.

---

Some things have work-arounds... the command not happening? I have Might as my primary set. Shockwave being a maintain attack (hold the key down for those that don't know). Often when I start it, it doesn't look like it's going, but i keep the key held down anyway. A second later, it finally shows as if I was holding the key down the whole time. Previously, I'd try pressing the key down again, only to find that it's now on a cooldown because I pressed it already.

This isn't the case for blocking. I often find myself trying to block, only to find out that my key press "didn't register" ... unlike the previous paragraph where I said that it registered me as attacking the whole time, this time it doesn't. Quite frustrating. It's like each issue operates under their own set of rules.

I normally don't like posting ona forum about why I quit a certain MMORPG, because it almost comes across as I want people to give a damn.  Which no body does give a damn that I canceled except myself.

My reason for canceling is the lack of group stuff to do.  Sure, you can group up with people to do random quests, but most people like to play solo anyway oddly enough because most are in a rush. 

I will say though that Champions is more exciting that Aion Tower of Eternity.  I'd rather quest grind that just enemy grind.  At least quest grinding feels like it has more of a purpose in the world and doesn't feel so much like a "game".  But right now I am play Aion, even though I'm falling asleep during the combat and it's not really exciting.

I miss just going out into the world and just exploring and treasuring hunting..*sniff*

Shoulda went with Fallen Earth..but blast I wish that it was done by a better company. 

The OP has been around as long as I have, so I must ask him this question:

What is your favorite MMORPG?

Originally posted by PatchDay

Originally posted by prototypo

Well i got a alt to level 30 tonight and i really haven't found this content gap that everyone is talking about, especially with the latest patch giving out more content to places i didn't even see listed here, like monster island, lemuria and more lairs amongst the hidden lands. It seems like there's always this trend going on with mmo forums and that is the bash wagon, once one person starts it up most people just hop on the wagon. Come on people lets form our own opinions.

 

Try playing through the game on more than one character. doing the same exact line of quests over and over and over is sickening almost. No variety, no freedom of choice.

 

 

Sorry, I don't agree. If you play as say a Might character and then play as say a Munitions character you have to do things differently. And then play as a Gadeteer and again you have new tactics you must use. While I do agree that there are gaps in content and that I would like to see two to three times the content in game needed level.

The first thing that everyone has to remember is that this IS a new MMO and that content will be (and already has been) added to the game. Cryptic has comitted to adding more content over the coming months. So, if you are one that only played for a short time...you missed out already. ;)