Even acknowledging that developers aren't the same as designers (and the latter are more likely to offer controversial views), I'd have liked to see the reviewer give more points and reasoning and less "it's good and I should know".

I would really like to hear knowledgeable people discussing how Blizzard set the bar with phase technology and how bad they feel it is that TOR uses more transparent instance sections. I mean, for such a story-driven MMO that seems really important to me. The storyline says that you go to a planet and change it dramatically (ending the war, becoming a cult figure, etc). And the old KOTORs certainly gave that impression that the world was different following your quest line. (I suspect all Bioware games do, though I don't have that much experience with them.) But in SW:TOR, the story says you ended the war but you step outside and it's still going on full strength. It rather undermines the story they're trying to tell.

Not to suggest that such tech is easy. Blizzard does far more humble storylines and still had an amazing feat. To my knowledge only LOTRO has made similar accomplishments. But to be the best in the industry I think this is the new standard, and it's relevant to TOR's strengths, and you'd think a developer would acknowledge such a thing, but this "review" did little more than tell us the servers won't crash. Not particularly insightful regardless of the author's creds.

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Originally posted by hehenep

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Originally posted by Amarsir
But now if there are 500 on a server, how many different ways does that get fractured? You might be looking not just for a tank, but a tank with vigilante access who has incarnates unlocked and the alpha slot first-tier filled . . . 

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A bit of a late reply here and all, but the game only would get split 3 ways.  Being vigilante or rogue doesn't come with any specific content.  It only lets you do content from both the hero or villain sides.  So you split things hero, villain and VIP (or incarnate basically).  I'm not even really sure I'd consider VIPs along the same lines as I'd consider Heroes or Villains since their exclusive content is really just a very small part of the game.

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Names and server slots are easily fixable "problems" if the desire was there. Increasing slot access only requires willpower, and names can easily be solved via globals. A player's full name would be Local@Global, and it would be a very trivial rule to say a player can be chatted with / invited / etc by

• global alone (would always work)
• combination (would always work)
• local alone (works unless a current conflict exists, in which case it's easily fixed via pop-up)

Socially I admit it might be more of an issue if people feel like they're comfortable RPing in a designated server or if they specifically avoid RPers in the same way. Or if someone can't bear the concept that they might cross paths with another "FireFreeze" yet have somehow remained oblivious to the "-=FireFreeze=-" and "Fire Freeze" and "FireFreeze03" and the fact that all those exist x12 on other servers.

But I think that's just an unfounded panic that would quickly be bypassed if they actually did it. For example, remember how much abject panic there was about merging the market between heroes and villains? Completely needless and I haven't seen that much misunderstanding of markets since the last time I read the New York Times. People were worried, and of course "doooooooom" was predicted, but in hindsight everything's fine.

The same would work for a serverless approach if so handled, they just don't want to. Which is fine if it's working, but I think they underestimate the importance of critical mass in multiplayer environments.

I believe the semi-official answer would be "when you bought Going Rogue you needed the box and a subscription to play Demon Summoning. You still do, so you're no worse off." Which is true. But I don't think they've quite managed expectations with the whole F2P conversion either. It's common with games that convert, but it is disappointing to hear "free free free" and then get "woah, not that part." Or to be told that something you already purchased is dependent on something you haven't.

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Originally posted by Phlegethon
My question for you is, what could NCsoft/Paragon add to make subscribing more of a draw for you or other players that have access to, or are at the top tier already due to their long-standing veteran status?
...
There are pretty substantial reasons for newbies and lower tier players to maintain a subscription including ATs, Powersets, bases, IOs, auctionhouse, Mission Architect, Signature Story Arcs, Incarnates... I'm sure I'm missing some things.
But for those that have been playing for 5 or 6 or 7 years, what do you think keeps those players subscribing? What do you think would be an incentive to keep them subscribing if they are already on the fence?

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I think there's two ways to make a subscription valued. The first is to offer an exclusive high-end offering that you can't get any other way; a lure so tempting it's worth the full price on it's own. The other is to make it a bundle of lesser features, so that 3 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... >= 15.

And as you suggest they've got a pretty good case for the latter, at least for newer players. But the former isn't enough for me now, as it wasn't enough before.

For experienced players in general, anyone who was happy before the Freedom change should be no less happy now. But obviously they've lost people over time too. And although I certainly don't think everyone would drop the subscription for piecemeal Incarnates as OSF said, there certainly would be some cannibalization. So the question is whether they'd gain more from returning players than they lose from current people swapping down. I feel like they might, but if NCSoft feels differently it's certainly their call to make.

On an unrelated note, I really think they should have switched to a Serverless model by now. The problem is what was first experienced when CoV came along, and then Rogue, then Incarnates, and now access tiers: it fractures the population into groups that can't play together. If you had 500 people on a server in 2005 (a decent turnout for non-peak hours) they'd all be heroes and at worst be fractured into 100 per 10-level range. Easy to form teams.

But now if there are 500 on a server, how many different ways does that get fractured? You might be looking not just for a tank, but a tank with vigilante access who has incarnates unlocked and the alpha slot first-tier filled . . . (Excuse me for not being up on the vocab & details, but you get the gist.) That can make the servers feel more empty than they actually are. Going serverless, despite the technical difficulties of an actual switch, would easily address this by giving everyone access to everyone else.

A Hero is Born

I played City of Heroes for several years (with on-and-off periods). To date it's still the only MMORPG to ever get that level of commitment from me. I liked that the combat is fast, that tactics are flexible, and that solo or pickup group play are both available with little planning. I really liked that I could have dozens of different characters that all played pretty differently.

Unfortunately, tracking each of the tiered systems for alignments, Incarnates, and other rewards left me where I didn't feel I could get value on an impromptu login and I didn't feel like maintaining a subscription just to log in, go "oh yeah, I needed that" and log off. I couldn't schedule enough time to feel I got my money's worth. So I lapsed the account after something like 60 months of subscriber time.

So now comes City of Heroes: Freedom, allowing play without subscription. Intriguing. And to be fair, two months ago I couldn't log in there at all so now anything beyond that is strictly and improvement. I'm certainly not owed anything. So today I reinstalled and here's what I experienced:

Locked Away for Crimes they Didn't Commit (or Prevent)

As expected, I found my characters locked. I have 10 usable slots waiting for me to assign, though. That's not a whole lot to a guy who used 12 slots each across 4 servers. It's not even enough for all my 50s. But certainly it enables me to pull up a few old favorites. I could see paying a little to unlock more over time. So I pick my fire/rad controller and log in.

That was a nice surprise, actually. I'd heard Controllers were a restricted AT. It turns out though that my account has enough subscriber time accrued that I have lifetime access to them. Pretty sweet.

No Interest, but Intrigued

I get a message that I have sold items on the Auction House, cash waiting for me. Even more surprising. Didn't the rule used to be they get deleted after 60 days? Just junk salvage, but it's good to have access to auction stuff. Not sure what character I parked all my influence on, though. I used to pass it back and forth via mail but I don't recall if I ever pulled it out. I kind of hope I did, lest a billion inf mail got deleted. (I didn't check my mail actually, due to system spam in it.)

My base (and I did have my own bases, at least one each on 4 servers) is locked. Not surprising, no rent paid in ages. So I go over to city hall and attempt to pay. No option. Well, there's been an update lag before. Let me relog ... nope. Am I the ... yeah, I'm the SG leader. OK so apparently you have to be a subscriber to pay rent. You must pay for the privilege of paying.

I want to be understanding, but as a long-time player I have numerous valuable enhancements in my base storage. And apparently I have no way of getting to them without subscribing. (Or trusting / making use of someone who does.) That's a bit of a let-down. I could live without my teleporters but storage is important, and even if I could live without using it again I want the stuff that's there.

De-hanced

Speaking of enhancements, about this time my toggles drop. That's weird because I was just standing there, not fighting. It turns out Invention Enhancements don't work. Every build I have on every character is pretty much IO'd out one way or another, and they simply don't work. It turns out I don't strictly speaking have to subscribe, though. For $2 a month I can get an Invention License turning them all back on. Much cheaper than $15, I could see doing that. But actually I have a better option due to my experience. My subscription history makes me very very close to permanent Invention unlock. (If I spent $15 I'd get that feature as a bonus to whatever I actually spent the $15 on, like character slots.)

So that's nice for me, with 5 years back history. If I was, say, a 2-year vet who had maybe 5 IO'd characters, that option would be way way out of reach. Again the $2 monthly option really isn't bad, but playing your main character the way you remember them for free is going to be impossible for most people.

Unsurprisingly after that, I can see my Alpha Slot doesn't seem to be working. (Unlike the Invention enhancements though, I didn't get a nice red "warning" message pointing this out.) OK so how close am I to permanent Incarnate unlock? It doesn't exist. How much for the monthly Incarnate License? Oh that doesn't exist either.

Hmm.

So unfortunately, the only way I can make any "forward progress" (which for my experience I define as "Incarnate Levels") is to be a full-on subscriber. I could spend some money to unlock more slots, and in doing so hit the threshold where my inventions are enabled, but there's no fixed (or discounted) rate I can pay to have access to the part of the game I'd want to be playing.

Not in it for the Teacups

This, to be honest, makes subscription even less of a marginal value than it was before. Before, $15/mo made the difference between playing and not, a big difference. If I was newish, $15/mo would make the difference between 2-slot minimal play and full multi-slot characters, auctions, and IOs, a sizeable difference. But for me, $15/mo makes the difference 100% of the game and 95% of it, and I do want that 5% but ... if you couldn't sell me a big upgrade before, how do you expect to sell me a small one now?

It's like I get a letter from Six Flags saying "here, have a free ticket". And I accept the premise that the free ticket is really an incentive to go buy overpriced Churros and slushies, which I might do. But then I go and find out the free ticket doesn't include Roller Coasters, and I can buy a full-priced ticket that does. Which, yes I'm sure I can, but the free ticket isn't doing anything for me at that point, so why am I there?

So that's where I stand. I still don't feel I ever got my money's worth for Going Rogue last year since I bought that for Incarnate slots which were limited availability then and not part of the package now, but that's water under the bridge. It's nice to give me the chance to be nostalgic, but they won't be getting my microtransactions when I'm no better off than I was 6 months ago - and I wasn't playing then.

Attn: NCSoft CEO

If there was an option where I could pay $3/month for Incarnates and $0.50/month for bases, I would immediately throw $30 at them to say "give me three months and unlock 5 characters." Nobody's retiring on that cash, but it's money they're not getting now and it puts me in place to buy more. (Plus I add player volume to the servers, which is something MMOs need.) Instead, they've locked it away under a $15 fee and I just can't justify that. Maybe there are enough $15 payers under the current system that they're fine, but for me it's an opportunity missed.

On average, Villian missions were written well after Hero ones. So they may be more involved in that they are more likely to have multi-tiered steps. It's also possible the maps average longer because of things like Sewer->Cave->Office Building break-in setup. But then Villains also get robbery setups which are often super-short.

[quote]Originally posted by trancejeremy
It doesn't help that the game has the slowest combat in a MMORPG I've played, even slower than LOTRO.
[/b][/quote]
You must still be at a low level or I don't know what, because I think City of Heroes has the fastest combat from an MMORPG I've ever seen. I think you'd have a better case to say it's unbalanced how easily you can one-shot enemies, but that's not any definition of "slow" I'm familiar with.

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Originally posted by xiiH4v0kiix
We might as well be saying all mmo's ripped of Dungeons and Dragons.

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Now perhaps we can graduate to statements with context. Yes, if someone merely says a game is a WoW clone with no larger point, then they're being cliche and can rightly be ignored. However, usually the implication is that the successor hasn't innovated much. And that's a valid criticism. You might trace a line from CoD back to Duck Hunt, but you're skipping over some pretty major innovations. Most notable would be Wolfenstein 3D, who added moving around the world as you aim and thereby established FPS as a genre. Had id Software been content to make another target shooter, a near-clone with a few tweaks, then gaming would look very different today.

(Though ironically the Wii has circled us back a bit.)

Any producer would be foolish not to copy tactics from successful predecessors. But at the same time, consumers should be demanding the next big thing, some radically different invention that's so insightful it will be the next thing they all line up to "clone".

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Originally posted by Inktomi
Im reading through the threads here and it sounds bleak. :I as in they "had" a great game, now its just user created farms. Is this true? I don't mind blowing 10 bucks for a month of CoH. I wouldn't mind spending the time if I could advance without farming lame easy missions.

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Not a double post, is the community there for higher end content?

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Going Rogue doesn't just let you switch, it lets you straddle the line. Between Hero and Villain are "Vigilantes" and "Rogues", who can visit red or blue zones at will. And that's where most people have moved. That means there are more teaming options for redside characters than ever before. You just have to connect with them because they probably won't be standing around Sharkhead waiting for an invite. (It might just be my personal preference showing, but I think TFs/SFs are more popular than before, and will especially be so with the new Incarnate rewards.)

As for which archetypes people want, I'd say the vastly prevailing opinion is "play whatever you want, just play it well." On the broad scale nothing is so unbalanced that it's unwelcome. Even Elec armor isn't so bad since they buffed Energize with heal & regen. And if your brute can't tank for the whole team without buffs just say so. You'll be a damage and secondary aggro resource. I doubt anyone would have a problem with that.

As for defense vs resistance, I think you're oversimplifying it. Defense is focused on over resistance because:
A) it's easier to get
B) the soft cap is attainable for anyone. (45%)
Resistance is damn near impossible to get from Invention bonuses, and only Tanks/Brutes can get a cap of 90%. That's why people focus on defense. However, as for protecting you resistance helps a lot and is less likely to get washed away on you. I'll explain.

I almost feel like Defense sets are the ones getting shorted because the availability of defense bonuses means Resist sets can have both. But that's not quite true either because what Ice and Super Reflexes and Shields have that most can't get is Debuff Resistance. And that's pretty important. If you've ever waded into a pack of Cimerorans in the ITF you've probably seen what they do to defense. And when that Corruptor's defense goes from +45% to -50%, he'll be well aware of how not a brute he is. 60% resistance may not be the greatest mitigation in a vacuum, but it doesn't go away just because the enemy AV is feeling accurate.

Now I personally think the invention bonuses were assigned pretty sloppily and it would be nice if the resistance numbers they sprinkled around were 3x or 4x higher. But that aside I think the ATs and even sets are pretty balanced and certainly no one gets treaded like a second-class citizen.

Hope that helps. If you can find a copy of Going Rogue at a decent price I'd advise picking it up and coming back for a bit. (Use a "returning player code" first for 15 extra days, though *cough*.) Your 50s might particularly enjoy the Incarnate Alpha slot they just released last week.

I'm not sure what you mean that a Warshade would "ruin what fun I can have with other characters." It's not like a Warshade is "easy mode" if that's what you were thinking. Warshades are more about choosing modes. You get a blaster mode which is very squishy, but also a tank mode which isn't at all. So it requires switching based on the situation. (And often between fights.) That may or may not appeal to you.

The character most like a blaster, but less squishy, is a high level blaster. :) Especially with the extra power options just opened up by inherent fitness, you can take combat jumping, tough, weave, aid self, and an epic armor. That's some pretty good mitigation and we haven't gotten to IO set bonuses yet. (Or you can just take Rise of the Phoenix and who cares if they die. :) )

More importantly than that for a blaster is choosing your build and your fight to win before they can really respond. The best mitigation is a dead enemy. Now that can get redundant ... Firebreath, Fireball, Fire Sword Circle the Lieutenants and it's clear. But it's pretty safe. And you pick your battles to either take down big even spawns fast or fight fewer higher level by holding/stunning first.

But you said beyond blaster, and that's fine. Defenders probably wouldn't have the damage you want. Dark Miasma would really be a good choice for what you want: self heal, debuff enemy resistance for extra damage dealing, and a couple different tools to play with. (Plus a pet.) If the only thing you didn't like about it was DoTs, then don't pair it with Dark Blast. Dark/Psi certainly has fans. Dark/anything would be fine.

If you're willing to go redside a Corrupter is pretty much by definition a Defender that focuses more on damage. You'd have to play villain for a while but once you do get Going Rogue you can switch them over. Make sure you pick one that debuffs or self-buffs so you're not just a "buff bot" for others. You could also build a Widow that's range-focused, although that almost is "easy mode."

I would recommend an Illusion controller, but you already have one. Gravity controllers get a fair number of attacks too, but you'll need to do it the Controller way meaning you get containment first.

The last choice would be a Dominator, again redside. They get a mix of ranged and melee attacks, and you could probably skip most of the melee ones if that wasn't how you wanted to fight. (At least eventually, you might need them for your chain at first.) It should at minimum be better damage than your average controller.

So hopefully something in there works for you. Or maybe something you have will play differently at a higher level. Or maybe your tastes are just changing. I used to love Controllers most, but at some point my favorite characters became Blasters. I guess sometimes you just have to figure out the attitude your character wants you to have and then see if you can't get into it.

Not true, TwwIX. In fact I just bought one right now. (Best Buy started their Monday deals on Sunday.)

It is the box copy not a DL code, so you either pick up in store or wait for delivery. But you can absolutely go get yourself a $10 copy right this second.

(As I said in another thread, anyone getting this game for the first time should use a trial code first, THEN add the box code, so you get the free trial time too. Use the 7 -day trial code from the site for a total of 37, or get a 10-day trial from a player (pm me if you want) for a total of 40 days.)

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Originally posted by Hpnotiq
Hey.  Not to kick over too many old stones, but I ws thinking of returning as well.  The only issue I have is a few years back, I recall some sort of issue with NCsoft saying there were going to delete old characters or change their names to "get the good names" back other players.
 
Is this true?  If I return, will my scrapper with the cool name be called XBR44**RENAME ?

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If you haven't read it yet you might enjoy Shamus Young's series over at The Escapist:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/shamusplays/7837-Shamus-Plays-Champions-Online-Part-1

It's a 15-part, very amusing Let's Play of Champions Online. He agrees that the combat is fun, but has some sharp observations about the writing...

Well that's a hell of a deal. You might even have Going Rogue by the time i19 comes in then!

(Which is good, because using the Incarnate slot requires it.)

You're right. My implication was for a first purchase but your observation is entirely correct.

I find the lack of a "default auto-attack", which seems to be standard in other MMOs, to be why CoH feels it has MORE powers available. Considering the (now easier to get than ever) temporary powers you can also add, they can easily overload your trays.

Also depending on how long ago it was, they've done several passes to smooth out xp and thus speed up leveling.

For anyone else who finds this thread, let's make it simple:

There's no reason to get anything other than Going Rogue edition.

Not only does it include everything that came before, Going Rogue was designed to be a new introduction experience. So it's the sort of thing you want from day 1, not a bonus pack to add later.