Originally posted by ayanel

Originally posted by rr2real

well is the game polished? does it have a lot of content to keep people interested? is it stable?

how does it compare to games like AoC and WAR when they were released?

 

The game so far runs beautifully on my new system but it is an overclocked i7 920 with an gx 275 and 6 Gig RAM.  I only bring that up because I have no personal experiance with how well it runs on more average systems.

 

I was not in either the AoC or WAR beta so it is hard for me to compare them at this stage in there develpoment.  I can tell you the bugs I have run into so far have not been major.

 

I have not been in the beta long enough to see the mid and end game content but what I have played through has impressed me.  Then again AoC was nice for about 20 levels so there is always that danger.   I played WAR for maybe an hour before canceling my subscription and uninstalling so I'd have say it CO already beats WAR for me!

 

I don't want anyone think CO is or will be perfect by launch.  It will have the same balancing issues every MMO has (even after they have been out for years) and I'm sure bugs and glitches will make it through the beta.  And I am sure there are some people who will not like the style of the game.  As I said before if you want a game that follows the tank/dsp/support model of WoW or hands you a bunch of pre-defined playstyles CO is likely not for you. 

 

Some people feel all characters feel and play the same regardless of the powers they pick.  Personally I feel that the three characters I have made have very different playstyles even when they were at level one.  Again I think it comes down to how deaply you are willing to dig into the system.  The character creation system in CO is fundementally a toolbox.  It does not force you to do anything other then take two attacks at level one.  So you can make an very borring character that does nothing but hit 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2 if you like.  

 

But there is nothing making you to do that. I have a character I love who almost never stops moving and dances between melee and ranged.  I plan to give her some knockback/up abilities because I think sending enemies flying is awsome and never gets old.  She can pistol whip you, kick you in the teath, and then do a series of backwards summersaults, a backflip and come up shooting.  As I level her up I'll add lightning bolts and a force field to her, maybe a fire attack too.  I have no idea if this is the most efficent way to make a character but for the first time in a long while I do not care because I've had fun playing her for every second.  I do cool stuff in combat just because I can; not because I am trying to maximize my exp per second.

 

I have enjoyed playing CO far more then any MMO I have played.  I think I have to go back to my very first one, Ascheron's Call, to find the same feeling of excitment as I do now about playing.

ok so this game isn't a tank/healer/dps game does that mean you can tank and heal at the same time?

can you explain that more for me?

Champions and the DC game both look to me like the same mistake CoH made: These guys either never read superhero comics or never liked them very much.

A superhero fight is FAST. Cars get thrown around, buildings are destroyed, our heroes find themselves flung not yards but blocks away. Those members of our team who can fly zoom around buildings in seconds, and not the sort of buildings where the windows are the size of your head and each floor has room for one hallway & one set of offices. A respectable superhero fight makes a big, fast mech fight look small and slow by comparison.

It seems to me there's no speed here, no destruction, no room for individual initiative, no vertical anything. Our team hovers in a circle around the boss, and we punch, and we root and mez and stun and heal, and it's just another MMO. And please don't tell me any of you honestly think it's not just going to be another damned MMO.

I'm being unfairly demanding, but it's just not time yet for a superhero game. The technology isn't here, the ideas won't be here for years and years, and all the love is for money.

If you never ever gave a damn about comic books, this might be the game for you.

Originally posted by rr2real

ok so this game isn't a tank/healer/dps game does that mean you can tank and heal at the same time?

can you explain that more for me?

CO has no classes. There are 18 power frameworks (Might, Electricity, Munitions, Fire, Darkness, Martial Arts, etc) containing hundreds of individual power. Over 40 levels you get to choose 14 powers + 1 End building attack + 1 travel power (and optionally one more travel power which may count as one of your 14 other powers).

The only restrictions are that the powers come in tiers:
Tier 0: no prerequisite
Tier 1: at least 1 in framework, or any 2 arbitrary powers
Tier 2: at least 3 in framework, or any 5 arbitrary powers
Tier 3: at least 5 in framework, or any 8 arbitrary powers

As you can see if you stick to one or two individual frameworks the higher tiers faster but eventually all of the powers in the game open up to you.

You also gain Advantage Points which you can use to modify your power or increase their Rank (which is the baseline for how much damage, defense, healing, etc they have).

There are eight Characteristics (Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Ego, Presence, Recovery, and Endurance) which influence things like how much knockback you do (Strength), how often you crit (Dexterity), how much extra damage you do on a crit (Ego), how much powers cost (Intelligence), your HP (constitution) and many, many other things.

You get to choose two of those Characteristics to be your Super Stats. Super Stats raise automatically every level and increase the damage, healing, etc of all of your powers.

You also get to choose Traits which increase your stats and gear adds to them as well.

Between all of that you can make a lot of different combinations; healing tanks, tank mages, offensive power houses, melee characters with control, and on and on and on.
 

Originally posted by einexile

Champions and the DC game both look to me like the same mistake CoH made: These guys either never read superhero comics or never liked them very much.

A superhero fight is FAST. Cars get thrown around, buildings are destroyed, our heroes find themselves flung not yards but blocks away. Those members of our team who can fly zoom around buildings in seconds, and not the sort of buildings where the windows are the size of your head and each floor has room for one hallway & one set of offices. A respectable superhero fight makes a big, fast mech fight look small and slow by comparison.

It seems to me there's no speed here, no destruction, no room for individual initiative, no vertical anything. Our team hovers in a circle around the boss, and we punch, and we root and mez and stun and heal, and it's just another MMO. And please don't tell me any of you honestly think it's not just going to be another damned MMO.

I'm being unfairly demanding, but it's just not time yet for a superhero game. The technology isn't here, the ideas won't be here for years and years, and all the love is for money.

If you never ever gave a damn about comic books, this might be the game for you.

While of course you have every right to pass on CO for any reason that you want to being an extremely fun game without the restrictions of classes is more then enough reason for me to play.

Originally posted by ayanel

Originally posted by einexile

Champions and the DC game both look to me like the same mistake CoH made: These guys either never read superhero comics or never liked them very much.

A superhero fight is FAST. Cars get thrown around, buildings are destroyed, our heroes find themselves flung not yards but blocks away. Those members of our team who can fly zoom around buildings in seconds, and not the sort of buildings where the windows are the size of your head and each floor has room for one hallway & one set of offices. A respectable superhero fight makes a big, fast mech fight look small and slow by comparison.

It seems to me there's no speed here, no destruction, no room for individual initiative, no vertical anything. Our team hovers in a circle around the boss, and we punch, and we root and mez and stun and heal, and it's just another MMO. And please don't tell me any of you honestly think it's not just going to be another damned MMO.

I'm being unfairly demanding, but it's just not time yet for a superhero game. The technology isn't here, the ideas won't be here for years and years, and all the love is for money.

If you never ever gave a damn about comic books, this might be the game for you.

While of course you have every right to pass on CO for any reason that you want to being an extremely fun game without the restrictions of classes is more then enough reason for me to play.

 

this is the main selling point of the game for me

ok so this game isn't a tank/healer/dps game does that mean you can tank and heal at the same time?

can you explain that more for me?

You have something called roles, you can choose 3 roles you can switch between for your individual hero.  If you wanted to be adequate at tanking,healing, and dps, you pick the balanced Guardian role.  Don't get the wrong idea that their aren't roles in group settings.  You will want to have someone in the Sentinel(tank) role for hard hitting bosses, and you'll want to have someone from the Protector(healer/support) role for healing and CC.  But all characters can change between these roles.  Granted, certain power-sets lend themselves to particular roles more readily, but that's to be expected.

Here's a blurb from their a dev blog on their site.

"Unlike most MMOs, Champions Online doesn’t have rigidly defined classes. Players can choose the focus of their hero by the powers they choose, what advantages they put on them, and the statistics on which they concentrate. Another key element to this is what Role the hero elects to take at any time. Set through the Builds interface, here are the four main Roles currently in the game:

Guardian (Balanced)

* Standard Damage
* Standard Bonus Hit Points
* Potency of Healing powers are standard
* Potency of Hold and Root powers are standard
* Resistance to Hold and Root powers are standard
* Power decays at normal rate
* Energy generated when blocking incoming attacks is standard
* Standard Threat generation
* 1 Versatile Passive slot

Avenger (Offense)

* + All damage is increased by 20%
* - Bonus Hit Points are reduced by 50%
* - Potency of Healing powers and effects are reduced by 20%
* - Potency of Hold and Root powers are reduced by 20%
* - Resistance to Hold and Root powers are reduced by 20%.
* + Power decays at 50% normal rate
* - No energy generated when blocking incoming attacks
* Standard Threat generation
* 1 Offensive Passive Slot

Sentinel (Defense)

* Standard Damage
* + Bonus Hit Points are increased by 25%
* Potency of Healing powers are standard
* Potency of Hold and Root powers are standard
* + Resistance to Hold and Root powers are increased by 20%.
* - Power decays at twice normal rate
* + Energy generated when blocking incoming attacks is doubled
* + Bonus to Threat generation
* 1 Defensive Passive Slot

Protector (Support)

* - All damage is reduced by 20%
* - Bonus Hit Points are reduced by 25%
* + Potency of Healing powers are increased by 20%
* + Potency of Hold and Root powers are increased by 20%
* + Resistance to Hold and Root powers are increased by 20%.
* + Power decays at 50% normal rate
* Energy generated when blocking incoming attacks is standard
* Standard Threat generation
* 1 Support Passive Slot"
 

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I have to admit their Role / Build system is one of the things that interests me most that and the combat. If the quests are engaging (even if they're like any other quest fetch, kill etc)  then I'm going really enjoy this game.   If you want to heal though you'll need I believe the Sorcery Power set (or the skills from it for healing if you dont want the whole set). 

Open Beta is a week and a half away I Plan to keep notes to share and whether or not I will buy according to my experience.  I'm not on the I'm buying this asap bandwagon, it all comes down to if it pulls me in during OB (bugs n all cause thats just how OB's go).