I must admit I'm a bit saddened reading the negative stuff about this game in various places.  I was addicted to CoX for 3 years, and was really looking forward to a new superhero MMO with new content, better graphics, etc., etc. , but now that I can afford to try it out for a month, I'm scared to.

The number one warning bell for me when I read some of the comments coming out of open beta was the teaming business.  By all accounts, the LFT setup is primitive, and there's not much teaming till the 30s.  How the hell could Cryptic make a game in which there's less teaming than CoX???

I mean, CoX as an MMO had many flaws, but IMHO 3 things made it sustain the moderate success it has had, given its flaws: the character creator, the visceral, trance-inducing combat, and the ease of teaming.  God, the fun I've had in PUGs in CoX!!! 

I'm a casual player, and I've  played most of the other "big" MMOs around (mainly WoW, LOTRO, EQ2, EVE) , and the one thing I've noticed about them is that, for most of them, "casual" seems to equal "solo".  CoX was the one MMO in which the casual player could get a really great social gaming experience in every play session.  In all the 3 years I played CoX I hardly ever soloed.  Yet I was never in an SG, and only made my own SG quite late on just to see what bases were all about.  For all my own missions, I usually PUG-ed with others, or got PUGs together myself, usually 8-man, and usually in about 5 minutes. 

How on earth could Cryptic have missed out on copying, maybe even bettering, one of the things they got really, really right in CoX???

Somebody please tell me there's some light at the end of the tunnel here?

In CO, I can personally tell you that you can solo 99% of the content. The remaining 1% is for those 5 person mission that you just need a couple other people to help out with.

Grouping is almost nil simply because (1) you can solo it all (almost), (2) teaming is bugged for some (massive lag when grouped), (3) no incentive to group up, when you do, the moment the mission's done, the other party(ies) will just drop and vanish, (3) other than grouping to finish the mission, the drops from them aren't all that great and (4) I really haven't seen any real xp jump from grouping.

In a way, CO can be considered as a stand-alone single-player game in a MMO setting. Great if you want to just jump in and burn some time taking your mind off RL issues but other than that don't really expect anything awe inspiring.

The character creator is excellent though, with a few minor bugs that you can live with, e.g. someone explain to me why I can't use capes when I have a chest item slotted ? And why can't I have a look at my weapons when I'm equipping them ?

Frankly, CO is a great game, or rather, has the 'Potential' to be a great game. It just feels as though it's in beta right now as it is. Maybe wait a couple months and see what Cryptic comes up with. There's supposed to be a big patch coming somewhere Dec-Jan. Maybe a lot of stuff will be fixed then.

PvP is really, really fun in CO. Extremely fast-paced and very responsive. However, at level 40 you'll be fighting the same five people over and over again, if you even get opponents. No one except a tiny, tiny little group of people PvP. I've been in many 3v0 PvP battles where I've had to zone out because the game couldn't end since no one was around to kill or be killed by. But when you do get a good fight against people who aren't using cheesy builds (right now something like Power Armor/Lightning can kill any player in 2-3 seconds), the gameplay is really fun.

Even outside PvP, there are already almost no people around. Millennium City peaks at about 500 people spread out over 7-8 instances of it, and the other zones have maybe 2-300 during prime time. And that's for the entire game, mind you, not just a single server.

PvE is pointless, as there is no real content, and no real loot to speak of. You get what you need from missions on your way to 40, and AT level 40, the best you can hope for is to grind for weeks to get an item which offers 1-2 extra stat points (which is nothing). Most of the "end-game items" that you have access to are poorly laid out, with way too many DIFFERENT stats on them. Everyone focuses on 2 or 3 stats, yet the "epics" available at level 40 are spread out over 4 or 5, making them a downgrade from even a low-quality mission reward.

The character creator is fun, but... yeah, that is only a couple of hours of entertainment, really. Like I said, there's no content at all. Four different types of PvP battlegrounds, but only Zombie Apocalypse has people playing, and even then you're dealing with a pool of maybe 20-30 players at any given time. For the whole game. As for PvE content, there is none. Some "lairs" you can go to, but since there's no loot you'll want, there's no point in going to each place more than once. You can "finish" the game in its current state in a few weeks.

Those are pretty fun weeks, though, so you might shell out the cost of the game, which includes a free month, and just treat it as a single-player game with limited playtime.

Although i prefer Marvel comics over DC...Im hoping DC Online will be successful.  Whenever I watch Ironman, or Spiderman; I am sadden that CO (which was original Marvel Online) is failing...

can someone explain why is everybody saying its a solo game? i was in beta.. not high level only got to lv 12 or below. the part where you in snow place... indian guy standing near a giant flame man and theres a portal to fight a boss..... the boss with dual pink light weapon.... i solo and drop on ground rapidly... try and try... 4,5,6,7 times.... finally saw someone near portal and invite them... then i can beat it.

This game is extremely casually friendly, but it all depends on your build.    Because you have free reign on what powers to take and what stats you can easily make an extreme support / group needing character or build the ultimate I can solo everything even the 5 man characters.    But its all about concept.   I built my main character around the fact I always have a friend.  She can solo almost anything but htings go faster and easier if she has atleast 1 other person.   The dungeons and five mans though she pretty much needs a tank or some sort of aggro grabbing character to not get squished.

She's not a PVP build so she's only 'alright' at pvp.  

I do wish they would gear more of the content towards groups usually I would be like hellz no on grouping but this game kinda shows the reason why there should be a balance betwen solo ability and grouping.  The halloween event didn't require grouping but being in groups helped and it made the atmosphere really social...I hope they start adding more content in this direction right now the only reason to socialize is to find a SG to get through some of the five man unity content at 40 and a some of the missions between 20 - 40.  

Its a good game and it definitely follows the Casual Friendly they were shooting for but..I think it leans a bit TOO Casual friendly at times.  Thankfully I'm rather casual with my MMO time these days so I'm enjoying it.  I can see how Hard core MMO players that like to dedicate 7 days a week 6+ hours a day though would not enjoy it.

The dev's said it themselves they wanted the game to be casual friendly..and they delivered on that promise.

I'm also a long time CoX fan, and did not like CO during the betas (CB and OB, I played a bit both at that time). But I just tried again the game during the free week end and actually had alot of fun (made a post about it just in the same section).

As you said, CO definitely screwed on the team dynamics, but that's the price to pay to have a full open customization where basically everyone can make a "tank-mage" with self healing on the top. To say, every optimized build is self sufficient and does not need any support. I hope they add new tiers of powers, harder to unlock, so people would be forced to specialize a bit more. That coupled with a few harder end game instances should do it.

And as someone wrote just above me the PvP is especially good, very fast and responsive, and alot of fun. At the moment it seems a few OP builds ruin it, but nothing that cannot be fixed in the future. If they keep adding fun PvP mini games like the Zombie Apocalypse, that are not about who has the most overpowered build, it could really improve alot also.

CO just did way to many things wrong. There really isn't a reason to team accept for maybe a very tiny tiny portion of the game. Whe you do team it's for a short time and most go there own ways after.

Then comes the fact that CO makes the most linear game feel sandboxish lol. CO has the single straightest line to the end I can remember. It gets very repetetive very fast. The game is fun for the first play through but not many seem to enjoy it after that. After there first 40 many people never even attempted to hit 40 again, you make a toon and run them till there mid 20's then do another. But even that gets borring after awhile. Just isn't enough content or variety of content.

The list of negatives goes on and on for CO.

But....... there is one huge positive for CO when it comes to people wanting to give it a shot. It's definetly worth the initial purchase. You can get a fun month out of the game, and it's definetly worth the purchase for that. After that, it's up to you.

CO would have made a great console single player game with an online PvP feature.

Originally posted by Pinkerl

can someone explain why is everybody saying its a solo game? i was in beta.. not high level only got to lv 12 or below. the part where you in snow place... indian guy standing near a giant flame man and theres a portal to fight a boss..... the boss with dual pink light weapon.... i solo and drop on ground rapidly... try and try... 4,5,6,7 times.... finally saw someone near portal and invite them... then i can beat it.

ill try .when you can solo 90% of the game an teaming slows down your xp gain .it leads to the" its a solo game".the same encounter your talking about my melee toon could not beat as well.but 2 of my ranged toons soloed it very easly.