I am serious. If you have not tried it, even with the free weekend, it's your own fault. While my critic stands and the game is lacking in enough aspects, after playing Aion a while, I found CO quite entertaining. Truth be told I did find CO way better than Aion. While the latter is quite a poor and simplified Asian grinder (as I felt while playing), CO at least is innovative and fresh. I am going to buy a key at the next opportunity, and while sure it will be for a few months and then see how much new is to come, I was quite entertained over this weekend. Its a shame they borked it in many ways, since otherwise it would be a really great game.

Issues are of course the lack of meaningful soloability due to nerfs and that the game has no real group content in the sense we know from MMOs, that you do something long and deep with a group. But the nerfs are not THAT bad, at least if you stick to some of the better powers, which takes some try and error. 1-sword was quite lame, but 2 swords was well to play, for example. So if you try and ask, you should build a char which avoids the worst pitfalls - and there ARE pitfalls, alas.

Lets hope they work on MUCH more content fast and re-sort their issue with the powers. I don't have much hope they do, because usually MMO Devs are not really willing to rethink errors, as it has been proven time and again. But in my book, compared to the many mediocre and bad games like AoC, WAR and Aion, CO is at least not worse than any of these, and not THAT bad than some claim.

What makes CO innovative? Please tell me. I'd really like to know.

I gave CO a chance. One word comes to mind.... boring.

Probably the most important thing to take into account is that CO development was emphasized on the program core than details. Development continues now on the details and new features are being added. I think it is pretty fun to play but still lacking of better endgame and group tools. Even if it currently is not meeting your expectations I am sure that it will, so it worths to keep an eye on it.

It is really worth it to try. I was a big backer of the game when it first came out. If it just had some more content and a few more things to do end game it would be a GREAT game. I don't even mind the cash shop they have.

CO better then Aion? really?

The only thing I enjoyed in CO was character creation then nothing ingame, would you pay a monthly fee to create characters and never use them? I wouldn't.

In all honesty,

I'd play Aion before I ever considered laying a hand on CO again (which says alot, as I am certainly no Aion fanboy). It is far from anything even resembling a quality product. Nor does it portray the feel of the Champions PnP RPG, as it was intended too.

- Light on content.

- Performs poorly on many modern systems.

- PvP is a disaster. Balance is non-existent and some powers are still blatantly overpowered.

- The recent event that took place was regarded as more of a chore than entertainment. Badly designed and executed, not a good sign.

- Character Creation is the most entertaining part about the game. After that it swiftly goes downhill fast.

- Very little incentive to group. Mission bosses are able to be soloed or 2 manned with ease.

- Mission maps are TINY and completed very quickly regardless of skill level.

- Pet AI is basically non-existent and what there is has been poorly implemented. A short list of options that rarely ever work as intended.

- Ingame Map is terribly designed. Not enough information at all.

- The developers took the quick and easy route of fast and furious gameplay, and sacrificed socialization and depth of content/features in order to provide that. Not a wise decision.

I could keep going, but really, why? It's quite obvious Champions is but a shell of what it could have been, and is nothing more than another addition to the trash heap in a long list of failed mmorpg's, and this is not just personal opinion there is plenty of third party documentation that follows suit.

I would recommend people save there money and leave this one on the shelf. It will be bargain bin material soon, no doubt about that.

I'll stick with Aion and leave Champions to the kids.

I bought it and tried it for a while.

Not a horrendous game, quite entertaining and fast-paced, but I felt the combat lacked depth.

I prefer my characters to have a wide variety of different skills and abilities. CO gave me an "energy builder" (i.e. autoattack) and just a couple of other skills to spam. Maybe it's different in the high-end gameplay, but the game didn't engage me sufficiently that I was willing to struggle through the monotony.

Not a horrendous game, but not for me.

Originally posted by bloodaxes

CO better then Aion? really?

The only thing I enjoyed in CO was character creation then nothing ingame, would you pay a monthly fee to create characters and never use them? I wouldn't.

 

So true. Best part of CO is character creation. Combat and powers are fun for a while. Then you feel the same ol same ol. Trapped in some small area...no open world. And what about when you hit endgame? I haven't gotten to that point yet...but to start another character is pointless...as you need to follow the exact same areas/quests.

CO is fun...but has zero replayability and small zones. Personally this game would have been better off using the guild-wars payment model. One time fee, not worth the monthly sub.

Originally posted by AKABoondock

I'll stick with Aion and leave Champions to the kids.

Yeah and Aion is for mature players only, like you,ah? :)

Combat was too shallow for me.  You'd hit level 7 on a character, get two Advantages into your primary nuke (which increased its damage by like 20%?  Or was it 40%?) and then you'd be spamming one button from that point until at least level 20 or so.

Sadly my best char builds were those which embraced this one-button-combat nonsense and purchased cooldown abilities which would amp my one ability even higher.

Combat is really important in games, and no amount of action-pacing or flashy graphics is going to distract me from the fact that if you ask me to kill every enemy the exact same way for more than 8 hours I'm going to stop playing. 

Betaed it, enjoyed it. Bought it, hated the postbeta patch. Came back during free weekend and I've seen nothing has changed to make the game enjoyable again.

It IS Better than that WoW clone AION but it still needs so much work.

Bought the game.  (Impulse buy.)  Was extremely impressed with the character creation.  After that, well.... 3 different attempts of 15 mins each , I decided to cancel my account.   The game's graphics was like being in a comic book.  Poorly drawn one at that.  I hated it.    I felt completely lost from the beginning completing uninteresting quests.  i dunno, this game was just not my cup of tea. The character creation was fun though.....

Wait wait wait.... there was a free weekend... and I missed it!?!?! :(

Im a sad panda... without skin.

Apparently you haven't leveled enough to hit the content gaps, which are a huge pain and my biggest complaint of the game.  The combat was fun, not innovative, but fun.  I enjoyed the blocking, when it actually responded.  The character creator was a blast.  It just lacked a lot of lore and the feeling of immersion that I was hoping for.   There is also a lack of character slots for those altaholics.  You only get 8 character slots. '

I always tell people to try a game, even if I didn't like it.  Their opinion may differ from mine.  So, to those that haven't tried it, try it, you may enjoy it.

Originally posted by Daedrick

Wait wait wait.... there was a free weekend... and I missed it!?!?! :(

 

Im a sad panda... without skin.

There was a free weekend, if you managed to patch the game in time before it ended.  I had the game installed in less than 30 minutes, but after almost 5 hours of patching nearly 3 gigs and barely 15% done, my interest severely faded.  Not sure if anyone else had the same issue, but like I said I downloaded the game in no time so I don't think it was just my connection.

The CO character creator is really fun... And if you're the sort of player who has a background story going in his head for every character he plays, it's even better - you really can create all sorts of different, wacky superheroes. I've lost track of how many templates I've saved aside :)

The thing is: Creating a superhero and taking it out for a ride for a few hours (or even till the 20s) is a blast, but after that, I've found the game is not really inspired. The basic progression mechanics I've enjoyed a lot (I'm even OK with the too-expensive in-game retcons), but what your hero actually gets to do in the game feels somewhat uninspired to me. I'd think a good deal of well-designed dynamic content could do good for this game.

I'm in the middle of a two week trial. The game is amusing.

However it doesn't offer what I like in an MMO. The experience so far is much too shallow.

For a superhero MMO, there's no villains or secret identities. There appears to be no game driven social component to the game or any kind of community in the MMO sense. The gameplay itself, like I said is amusing but so far to me it plays more like a single player action type game with multiplayer than an MMO.

I'll keep at it til the trial is up, but so far its not something I'm buying.

Yet another recommendation eh Ekial? How long do you suppose you'll last this time?

Originally posted by AKABoondock

I'll stick with Aion and leave Champions to the kids.

rofl, you're kidding right?