A lot of you guys sure do hate on this game for little reasons.. I wanted to chime in and say I had a lot of fun in beta and can't wait for the game to start up.  I love the customizability and I think combat and travel as a blast - which means the gameplay is fun, which all current MMO's are lacking IMO.  Go solo some even-level mobs in WoW or LOTRO and tell me that's fun.. it's painfully boring.  In this game combat is much more exciting.

This game is pretty fun to play. I've been playing CoH/CoV for a couple of years and I can definitely say this an upgrade. Big Upgrade.

 I played the Open Beta. Liked the game a lot. Of course, like all MMOs its going to have some teething issues.   I don't get all the hate and the comparison to Guild Wars is way off base. Guild wars was also party instances Champion instances are hundreds of people.

While both sharding and server partioning have there advantages and disadvantages for this game at least sharding is a much superior solution.

Originally posted by Kryogenic

Originally posted by TibMonkey

Originally posted by Kryogenic

Not to mention when you did hit one of the instanced missions and do it with a group, when you exit the instance group members get seperated into different instances. It's not a solution to the problem.

er no they don't, 100% of my beta time was spent in a group.

I didn't play at all during open beta and I didn't log in to the last 2 closed beta tests, but up until then grouping was always a crap shoot.

I didn't group in Alpha and I only grouped up a few times in CB and everytime we ran into issues.

All that aside the way they have the servers set up is exactly how Guild Wars has their game set up? In fact Guild Wars' combat system is much more engaging and fun to play and is infinitely more conducive to strategic and tactics based group combat than Champions is. Guild Wars also doesn't require a monthly fee to play.

What's so different about Champions that requires a monthly fee? The ability to jump? The option to choose different travel powers? Yeah... that warrants a monthly fee and a cash shop.

Sign me up please. I'd also like to purchase the brooklyn bridge and some ocean front property in Kansas.

 Now this is why i don't  try to think twice before buying a game when this guy here is giving you bad things from the game and he didn't even spent a lot of time. What lvl did you reached, 8? you just spent time in the tutorial and desert/canada crisis? did you even join a supergroup and took down Dr destroyer? doesnt look like. I spent a lot of time i grouped up a lot of times, no issues about finishing a lair and the group split in different instance of the zone, you always end up in the same instance since there is an option to keep you all together and a checkbox that doesnt make the game chose an instance for you, you have 30 sec to decide wich one join and it even tell you where are you team, supergroup players and friends.

 Pls dont judge a game you didn't spent more than 48 hours or reached at least lvl 25 for your nemesis, people are complaining about running out of content when even lumeria and Moster Island were closed for Open Beta. This game give you the choise to go solo or group and let me tell you something you will never ever take down Legendarys or cosmic alone they can basicly one shot you and if you get a build to try solo them you will spend more than 1 day to finish them off. The game is great, the articule is great and i invite you all to try it.

Nice review.. I just need to point out that Cryptic is penalizing a huge portion of it's pre-order customers.. Direct2Drive specifically.. We are not allowed to take part in the head start, despite paying for pre-order just like everyone else. Regardless whether or not they said this up front, I find it to be a terrible business practice..

My thoughts about it that I have been passing along to customer service and others:

I really don't think you can brush this under the carpet. There are a LOT of D2D customers angry that we aren't in on the head start. If it weren't for some of them being in somehow, I'd let it go. Don't use us as pawns in a contract and shatter my respect for your gaming studio. The launch is looking messier and messier as the hours go by...

Oh, and BTW.. I am part of a rather large gaming community about to launch a new site including reviews and guides. You were to be one of our first featured games.

Originally posted by Elyod

Originally posted by Kryogenic

Originally posted by TibMonkey

Originally posted by Kryogenic

Not to mention when you did hit one of the instanced missions and do it with a group, when you exit the instance group members get seperated into different instances. It's not a solution to the problem.

er no they don't, 100% of my beta time was spent in a group.

I didn't play at all during open beta and I didn't log in to the last 2 closed beta tests, but up until then grouping was always a crap shoot.

I didn't group in Alpha and I only grouped up a few times in CB and everytime we ran into issues.

All that aside the way they have the servers set up is exactly how Guild Wars has their game set up? In fact Guild Wars' combat system is much more engaging and fun to play and is infinitely more conducive to strategic and tactics based group combat than Champions is. Guild Wars also doesn't require a monthly fee to play.

What's so different about Champions that requires a monthly fee? The ability to jump? The option to choose different travel powers? Yeah... that warrants a monthly fee and a cash shop.

Sign me up please. I'd also like to purchase the brooklyn bridge and some ocean front property in Kansas.

 

 Now this is why i don't  try to think twice before buying a game when this guy here is giving you bad things from the game and he didn't even spent a lot of time. What lvl did you reached, 8? you just spent time in the tutorial and desert/canada crisis? did you even join a supergroup and took down Dr destroyer? doesnt look like. I spent a lot of time i grouped up a lot of times, no issues about finishing a lair and the group split in different instance of the zone, you always end up in the same instance since there is an option to keep you all together and a checkbox that doesnt make the game chose an instance for you, you have 30 sec to decide wich one join and it even tell you where are you team, supergroup players and friends.

 Pls dont judge a game you didn't spent more than 48 hours or reached at least lvl 25 for your nemesis, people are complaining about running out of content when even lumeria and Moster Island were closed for Open Beta. This game give you the choise to go solo or group and let me tell you something you will never ever take down Legendarys or cosmic alone they can basicly one shot you and if you get a build to try solo them you will spend more than 1 day to finish them off. The game is great, the articule is great and i invite you all to try it.

Look I started playing the game in the alpha phase, Oct of 2008. I'm pretty damn sure I spent more time with the game than you did.

I'm also I little tired of having to defend my point of view from people who were in the open beta and didn't really see what happened before then.

Not to mention most of the people who are talking so highly of the game never spent enough time with it to wear away the newness and to take off the "this is a new game and super cool" rose colored glasses.

Play the game for a few months and then come back and see if you aren't singing a different song.

very well done preview... very informative and it actually answered all my questions, thanks

Why do you feel you have to defend your point...Your ranting and raving about closed beta that happen almost a year ago wont sway people away from the game if  they like it and want to play it. Why are you so worried about going into every forum possible to bash this game..You work for NC Soft?  Get over it let it go...we get it you dont like the game...that dosent mean it sucks..just means you dont like it..Get over yourself!!

I prefer the power special effects, the style of combat and the endurance mechanic of City of Heroes over Champions Online.  Both games tend to bore me after a month or so.  Too much instancing, virtually no explorable content, most of it is mission based.  At least I could solo well in CoH as a non healer, not choosing a regen or heal power  in CO really decreased the fun factor for me with the constant dying.

Very informative.  I've been playing for about a month and am having a blast.  The game is leaps and bounds better than CoH.  They have done a terrific job at making a better successor. 

Originally posted by Varny

Originally posted by qbangy32

Originally posted by TibMonkey

Originally posted by Kryogenic 

If it has any staying power and they revamp the combat system, switch to multiple servers instead of multi instanced copies of each zone, through out the cash shop, and add in secret identities,

Then I'd quit.

 

Ditto.

Ppl constantly complain "Too many empty servers" and "My server is dead, when are they going to merge servers" now you got a guy here complaining when a company tries to solve that issue.

 

 

Well EQ2 did the same thing and people don't like all the loading between zones because then it doesn't feel like an online world.

I wish posters would stop talking about 'people' as if we were all a hive mind automatically shared their opinions.

I don't mind multiple zoning. It's a good way to deal with the heavy user base that is inevitable in the first month, but will then drop off sharply (very sharply for this game, but thats another post). They don't spoil the feel of anything to me tbh, and it worked well in EQ2 in the early days.

I'm no fan of CO and it's item mall, but please don't try and act like the spokesman for an entire playerbase.

Originally posted by psyconius

Nice review.. I just need to point out that Cryptic is penalizing a huge portion of it's pre-order customers.. Direct2Drive specifically.. We are not allowed to take part in the head start, despite paying for pre-order just like everyone else. Regardless whether or not they said this up front, I find it to be a terrible business practice..

 

My thoughts about it that I have been passing along to customer service and others:

 

I really don't think you can brush this under the carpet. There are a LOT of D2D customers angry that we aren't in on the head start. If it weren't for some of them being in somehow, I'd let it go. Don't use us as pawns in a contract and shatter my respect for your gaming studio. The launch is looking messier and messier as the hours go by...

Oh, and BTW.. I am part of a rather large gaming community about to launch a new site including reviews and guides. You were to be one of our first featured games.

 

Did you try to log in? Some D2D customers are in the 3 day head start, as far as I can tell ones that also bought a sub. Posters in both the official forums and here on MMORPG.com have confirmed this. They are merrily playing away as we speak.

As for the write up... Great job! I wasn't really interested in CO before as I'm mainly interested in STO but this article has me seriously thinking of snagging a copy and giving it a go. I played CoH through beta and thought it was okay but I was already playing Lineage II at the time so I stuck with that instead. From all I'm hearing about CO though it sounds like most of what I had a problem with CoH has been fixed with CO. My main issue with CoH was the extremely repetitiveness of both the combat and mission systems. CO seems to have totally revamped both into something a lot more exciting and interesting. I'll definitely be snagging a copy of CO and checking it out. Great Preview!

Bren

(Edited to clarify the D2D part of my post that not all D2D people are allowed in the Head Start.)

Originally posted by Zeblade

Well they didnt solve anything here. Its worse. If you play alone then its wonderland for you. There were to many times in beta that my friends and me could not play together because the super tiny instances were ful  100people. you cant cue, wait inline.. nope you have to go to a smaller one and hope it dont fell up fast before your other friends get there.

 

Anyway nice write up.. but did everyone read the END GAME! Oh gee cant wait to get there

Crazy talk.

I played nothign but ina  group (almost 90% of the time).

And never had this problem, ever.

You can freely move and pick between where you go so you just call your friend/s over to yours.

futhermore when leaving you just said #17 or whatenot and everyoen can pick it w/o waiting for the first person leaving to show up .

I have deleted some posts to clean up this thread. Now please post constructively for those that continue this discussion!

Thanks!

Originally posted by Babylon9000

Originally posted by Haradeas

If you liked city of villians / heroes, you will like this game. Didnt you like it , trust me you will hate it :p

Tryed the open beta, but the game is just so pc heavy ... and I got a game pc go figger :) ( btw didnt like it so much )

 

I have to agree on the game being PC heavy. I bought a newer video card just to play it and still can't crank it right up, but didn;t want to spend more than about $60.00Cdn on a card (Ge Force 9400GT) not the newest but still a pretty decent card and 1Gb of VRAM, it's no slouch on my extreme board with a dual core. Maybe time to buy a new PC next year. But still I would have thought I'd be able to crank the graphics right up and just hammer away with no choppiness. I have it at about 2/3 max video settings and it runs well now. it's a shame as I think alot of people willl be turned off by the huge video requirements.

Dude, the 9400 GT isn't a gamers card... you need at least a 9600 GT to be able to do heavy graphics. To give you an example: even the old 8600 GT is a better gamers card than the 9400 GT.

Originally posted by wyrde

While most people regard the zones as an obstacle, I found them to be a great tool. If there weren't enough players around, I'd just switch to another zone. Too many? Switch to another zone. Having trouble with someone grabbing all the resources in a spot? Switch zones. The dreaded load screen, on my slow system, was never more than a ten seconds (typically much shorter, just a couple seconds). Even big areas like Millenium City loaded quickly. Changing zones is extremely easy and the game tells  you which zone you're in at several places. The big zones, Canada, Southwest Desert, and Mil City are also quite big. Even with the faster travel powers, it still takes a while to get from one end to the other.

The game does have some other issues, most notably being so graphics-heavy (a long thread on the forums with people trying to supply information on the issue). But overall, it was  a lot of cheesy fun.

 

-w

Now, that's what I want to hear. You give some merits, you are aware of some issues. Giving specific examples and referencing discussions of the issues that are prominent.

Kudos W.

Originally posted by psyconius

Nice review.. I just need to point out that Cryptic is penalizing a huge portion of it's pre-order customers.. Direct2Drive specifically.. We are not allowed to take part in the head start, despite paying for pre-order just like everyone else. Regardless whether or not they said this up front, I find it to be a terrible business practice..

 

My thoughts about it that I have been passing along to customer service and others:

 

I really don't think you can brush this under the carpet. There are a LOT of D2D customers angry that we aren't in on the head start. If it weren't for some of them being in somehow, I'd let it go. Don't use us as pawns in a contract and shatter my respect for your gaming studio. The launch is looking messier and messier as the hours go by...

Oh, and BTW.. I am part of a rather large gaming community about to launch a new site including reviews and guides. You were to be one of our first featured games.

 

I've also pre-ordered and was not able to play yet, I've also read in a previous forum post that someone who purchased from D2D was able to participate in the Headstart.

Originally posted by psyconius

Nice review.. I just need to point out that Cryptic is penalizing a huge portion of it's pre-order customers.. Direct2Drive specifically.. We are not allowed to take part in the head start, despite paying for pre-order just like everyone else. Regardless whether or not they said this up front, I find it to be a terrible business practice..

 

My thoughts about it that I have been passing along to customer service and others:

 

I really don't think you can brush this under the carpet. There are a LOT of D2D customers angry that we aren't in on the head start. If it weren't for some of them being in somehow, I'd let it go. Don't use us as pawns in a contract and shatter my respect for your gaming studio. The launch is looking messier and messier as the hours go by...

Oh, and BTW.. I am part of a rather large gaming community about to launch a new site including reviews and guides. You were to be one of our first featured games.

 

[Quoted from: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/71763]:

GameStop is offering access to the Early Start Program,[bold added for emphasis] giving customers who preorder a few days headstart in the game before its official launch on September 1st! In addition, all preorders include the exclusive Insectoid Airfoil costume piece and the Experimental Anti-Graviton Generator flight travel power at character creation.

[Quoted from: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/72211]:

Digital download details revealed.
Champions Online will be available for preorder through a number of outlets, but recently the details of the digital download option through Direct2Drive was released. By preordering from Direct2Drive, players will receive guaranteed access to Fileplanet's open beta and an exclusive costume piece: the Mechanoppendage Backpack.

----

So I walk into a Tex-Mex restaraunt and have a look at the menu.  I decide on the Enchilada Dinner, which is described thusly:

"1 beef enchilada in ranchero sauce served with refried beans, spanish rice and a crispy beef taco."

But when my meal arrives I get all huffy about there not being any guacamole.

I just don't see how you buying a pre-order pack that clearly says nothing about Early Start is Cryptic's fault and something they need to rectify.  You read the descriptions (unless you didn't, which isn't Cryptic's fault either) and made you're descision on where to place your pre-order.  They didn't MAKE you pre-order from where you did, you chose after having the various bonuses for each pack were revealed.  It was your descision, not theirs. 

And if you did pre-order before, then, well, ya pays your moneys; ya takes your chances.  If you pre-orded before the announcement then you were gambling that you had made the best descision.

So what have we learned here today?  It's your money and your descision how to spend it.  But I guess its easier to blame Cryptic than admit you were too short-sighted to read the descriptions of each pre-order offer.

Wasn't that good a review actually. Total Crap as you can find that all out on your own. PvP is a joke in that game since everyone can cherry pick their powers and it gets very hard to kill anyone at all or be killed yourself. If for some reason you didnt pick decent powers you get totally raped over and over once the other players find you and if you picked crappy powers early on and your max level? Can't respec them. You can only respec 10 lvls back. I found the game cool at first but its kinda boring after a short while. It seems too repetative to me.

I dunno, this game seemed good but i just can't get into it...

character customisation is good, unfortunately for weapons unlocked don't get unlocked if you start a new character.. so you have to unlock those each time (wo0o microtransactions should sort that out *rolls eyes*). But it is the best part of this game but then again it was the best part of CoX too.

Engine wise, it's not buggy.. (well you can go through the fountain in millenium square and through walls and stuff) but it's not that buggy. Shame it's clunky, unweilding and although cartoony.. i just can't get past the clunky ness... picking up rubble to have your hands full of "nothing" and rehaving to pick it up until the engine realises you're picking up part of it. ugh.. it's offputting. (you can see this really well during the tutorial saving foxbat).

Combat feels consol-ish, it's like it was designed from the ground up for a console, with PC players tagged on (much like the crafting in this game), the combat targetting is... ugh awful. I like to be able to switch, but some powers require full power to work (like sigils) and half the time they don't actually work (like sigils). In fact there are two places (i've found so far level 15-16) in Millienium city where Sigils and Pets still refuse to activate.

Quests are meh, some are fun where as others are waiting for a spawn... just to see someone steal it. Occassionally if you tag the enemy with any power whatsoever... you get credit. (occassionally). Some people group up, others refuse to group up. All the usual MMO fun, with killing 3 mobs to have someone get the crate you wanted in the middle.

Mobs of enemies, doesn't actually have a balance, i mean you can take out a level 17 super vilian at level 13 (westside at night), but you might have trouble killing a couple of Foxbot henchmen which are level 14 and marked "tough". I dunno, i found itemisation kinda dumb too.. you can find items which increase your frameset powers but not many of them involve the "force" frameset. Just feels  half done.

It's still fun, especially if they ever fix the Quarr invasion in Millenium City (you get one spawn leader and once he dies, it ends instead of spawning more, so the whole thing in MC lasts on average 20 secs... go to canada and the desert just now, lower level Quarr's but at least you'll get the perks done)

I'd go through the amount of bugs in game just now, really needed another month for that extra polish. I'm enjoying it so far, but i don't think it'll hold my interest for that long.... especially once we see exactly what the microtranactions intail.

If you enjoyed CoX, love the sense of arena PvP and lots of superhero like powers which may look different but all feel the exact same (try this), you'll love it. But there's better MMO's already on the market.... (except WAR of course lol).

definately not for everyone.