Coh is a fun game, and has the best teaming system of any MMO imo. When you are having a ton of fun, you dont notice that the graphics are not top notch. You cant really even say that they are that bad. They have ambiant occlussion, true player reflections, and blob shadows. Tech wise the engine is fine. They only real thing that is dated are the player models, which arent that bad.

Can I still get a code?

I was really excited when I heard demon summoning announced, but when I actually saw and tried them I was not very impressed. I know they put a lot of work in to them, but I just cant get over the whole cow head thing. I call them cow head 1, cow head 2, and so on. I don't feel that there is much difference to them either. I would had prefered that maybe just the Prince had the cow head to make it really stand out. I was originally going to make this my new powerset for starting out in GR, but I'm going to pass on this powerset all together. I love master minds, probably my favorite class, so I hope to see more options in the future. A animal set would be nice.

Originally posted by storm-dragon

Call me crazy, but still having a blast in CO, never understood the mindless hate that folks showed it, there seems to be two sets of players surrounding the game...those who log in and play and those who never log in but spend hours upon hours bashing the game....par for the course I guess.

Only time will tell if it is a good game or not.

I see no future for this game, and I'm being optimistic even calling it a game.  There will be no room for it once DCUO is released. It can't even draw CoX  players away from the aging MMO. The future looks bright for CoX with Going Rogue, and DCUO with this ultimate IP. STO is looking weak, and I wouldn't see it very difficult for players to shift gears to the other huge  IP in sci-fi community. Star Wars Old Republic is shaping up much better. Cryptic took a huge gamble letting their development team go with CoX to NCSoft. It appears it was a gamble that is going to cost them everything. I foresee Cryptic going under in   few  years time unless there is a dramatic shift in the company. The vison and direction of their games need to shift along with that change. With the market being so bad right now, there is no room for inexperienced teams to survive. You should have stuck with your original team Jacky boy! They were the talent, that you were riding on!

They have my attention, we'll see if they can keep it.

The thing I love most about this situation is that you all can do something about it. Don't buy or play the game if you don't like it.

 All the talent left Cryptic and went to Paragon Studios when Cryptic sold off City of Heroes to NCSoft. The "New" Cryptic team has yet to prove their ability to craft a game. City of heroes just keep getting better, while Champions is flopping even though it has the advantage of a fresh new engine.

How odd that customization seems to be the focus, and selling point of the game, but then take away any sort of freedom with the storyline, and character progression. You create you completely custom and creative character, but then you are forced to play out a linear story line that might not even remotely fit with your creation. Players should be free to develop their own stories by just choosing missions that fit with their characters. At least that way people can pretend that the game revolves around their character, and not cryptics idea of a storyline for your character.  I think that is the biggest failing point.

Im not a fan of the Champions world to start with, so I knew it was going to be difficult to like the game with its characters and story lines. I cant stand the crisis tutorial, or the following disaster areas. The NPC mob groups don't really appeal to me either. and I cant seem to stay interested long enough to care about a Nemesis. I do like the power sets...how you can pick what you want. The graphics all around are good, but it's the game portion that should keeps me interested. I just think the lore, and the character are to goofy for me, but Ive never been to in to the golden age. I'm sure the game is fun to some, but it's just not working for me on so many levels.

I hope they turrn it around, but I just dont see how it will ever work for me.

I think Bill is a bit optimistic about everything regarding this game. My personal opinion is that he should start putting together a new resume in another area of interest. Games just don't seem to be his thing. He's kidding himself if he doesn't realize the ship is sinking. 

Originally posted by Mors-Subita

Originally posted by AngelBurst

I think there is a direct correlation between the complexity of character building, and the low percentage of teaming in the game. If they can some how remove the complexity, and keep the flexability of character building. I think you would see more people teaming out sheer confidence in their ability to make a decent hero.

There really should be a easy button for builds. Choose a class that you are interested in making your character like; Tank, healer, Blaster...etc, and the interface adjusts your role/build to fit that class. Stats that benefit your choosen class should be highlighted to help you build towards that class. It would act like a teaching tool, that you would eventually no longer need, but initialy help you learn their system of building characters in CO.

 

They do... when you first start the game and you choose a power set they recommend starting stats to you. That being said, their recommendations are one of the few things in the game I think is shit...

 

The problem with what you are suggesting in terms of stats is that most stats can benefit your chosen "class" in some way, and with very few exceptions, the only thing to recommend one over another is play style. That is one of the nice things about this game...

And tank, blaster, and healer are all pigeon-holes which are no longer apropos. For example, I have a character who does all 3 of those well... What would you call him?

Doing the blood moon event my blaster had to drop back and start healing the person I was teamed with, because I died too quickly, and without heals so was she... whereas with me healing and her tanking, we did well... That is what the builds are all about. 

Builds are not "here is how to choose your powers", Builds are about changing the focus of your powers and your play style. Stats are based entirely on play style. Power choice is based on concept and play style... Its a brave new world... Now all they have to do is fix crafting for me, and add some more end-game content, and we will all b

If you read the article, it's talking about roles, and how it can be fun to load yourself out like a certain classic build and make a balanced team, instead of focusing on a blanaced character for solo play. We already know how  to solo and make balanced builds for that.

We all know the power of CO character builder is that it is capable of changing on the fly to fit situations. That is all understood and common knowledge at this point.

My suggestion was for new people. A guideline to help them understand roles, enhancemets, builds, and how you  can combine them to make classic type classes. All relating to the topic of the article mind you. Which was basically about playing classic roles to build a balanced team. No one is saying that is what you should do all the time, or have to do it at all. It's just a suggestion the writer was making to inspire teaming. My comments where targeted at the fact that people don't even know how to build a classic type build because the tools are not that intuitive. A guideline would help them understand how to make the classic classes, and then they can use what the learn from that to customize on the fly when needed.

My suggestion does not label your character any certain class. You just choose tank, and it advises you on how to make your character more tank like by choosing the best role for you, and suggesting stats that help make you tougher.

This is nothing to do with people that already understand how to make character, and changes nothing functionally. It's just guidlines for new people to help them should they want to make classic like build for balanced teamling like in the article.

If you're new and you want to team you can figure out how to make a blaster type if that is what is needed for the team.

Right now new people are complete lost about builds when they first start the game.

I think there is a direct correlation between the complexity of character building, and the low percentage of teaming in the game. If they can some how remove the complexity, and keep the flexability of character building. I think you would see more people teaming out sheer confidence in their ability to make a decent hero.

There really should be a easy button for builds. Choose a class that you are interested in making your character like; Tank, healer, Blaster...etc, and the interface adjusts your role/build to fit that class. Stats that benefit your choosen class should be highlighted to help you build towards that class. It would act like a teaching tool, that you would eventually no longer need, but initialy help you learn their system of building characters in CO.

With the new expansion do you still have to start out in Tortage, or is there a new starting point? The only thing that would bring me bacl to AOC would be the addition of multiple starting points, and more classes.

I think the whole thing is stupid. This is what happens when there is nothing else to talk about.  There is no real story here. They offered a limited time offer, and then stopped when the offer was over. End of story. Everything about it was normal business 101.  They were kind enough to extend the offer for those that missed the offer for what ever reason.

Originally posted by kinglee

 You guys do know that his space flight was a publicity stunt for Tabula Rase right?

 

Silly fellow.  The ride wasn't to publicize the game, but RG occasionally used the game to publicize his ride.   When RG got attn from the press about his ride, he never mentioned either NsSoft or the game.   He is not th sort of guy who shares.

ok lets clear some stuff up.

There is tons of thing you guys are assuming here.

For one RG father was an astronaught which is why RG was going in to space in the first place. His father got him interested in the space tourism industry.The payment for his ride was to help fund the space tourism industry, of which he also is invested in.

He paid out of his own pocket for the space ride to fund his own company. Basically all he did is take the money out of his bank account and put it in to his own compnay. It was a majority of his money, around 30 million.

He's been involved in the space industry for a long time.  The planed flight was something that was in the works long before anyone had even thought of Tabula Rasa.  I think even before he formed Destination Games.

The timing was right, and he took the oppertunity to go, and publicize it, and he did big time btw! He had booths at all the conventions having people sign up for the contest.  He even produced and haded  out swag for it.

NCsoft NA was his company Destination Games. He sold it to NCsoft and stayed on to finish working on his game which then just had a code name.

I think the plan has always been to  just stay on long enough to finish the game. He already had stakes in another venture and industry.

He did the space flight to both promote his old venture, and his new venture.He got some publicity for the game, and his new company. He didnt have to do anything for Tabula Rasa, but he did, because NCsoft had proven that they were not behind the game.

Everything that has happened was beneficial for NCsoft. They got their north american hq, and a game development company established all in one shot. They called it a partnership, but that isn't really what it looked like to a lot of people.

There is no loss for NCsoft, so I have no idea where this speculation comes from. I think NCsoft only really wanted to establish the north amarican office. I don't think they cared to much about the game in the first place. I imagine it was kind of a bastard child/contractual obligation for the deal. So when RG left, they cut the funding.

I don't think it was a suprise to NCsoft that he left, or RG that they cut the funding. Personally I think it was very arrogant of NCsoft to do it, and it makes it obvious what there intentions were all along. They never backed the game for the start. I can only imagine if they did. It is a great game now that it is finished. No thanks to NCsoft.

I think a lot of people and companies are turned off by NCsoft because of their business practices. I'm glad Cryptic got out from under them.

I think you guys have this situation all turned around.

----------

sorry about your eyes I got short on time, and had to rush it.

You guys do know that his space  flight was a publicity stunt for Tabula Rase right? That there was a contest for Tabula Rasa players to get there DNA taken in to space with him. The game did release to early, and it had only to do with money, and NCsoft.  I spoke with the dev team at all the conventions, and my knowledge of what was going on is nothing like what you guys are saying. I hear a lot of people claiming to know how he reacted to certain situation, and what he was thinking when decisions were made. I would like to know how you people claim to know this stuff. I work in the industry, and talked to the dev team at every show. I heard nothing like what you guys are claiming. He wasnt mad, he didnt put up a fight. How could you possibly know this?

 

And for the record, as a developer myself.  I can tell you that Tabula Rasa in the state that it is in right now. Is one of the most impressive MMOs on the market right now. If you don't belive that is the case. I challenge you to get a free code and try it again. The only problem the game had was being released a year to early. The game in finished now, and it is amazing. There is nothing that can even compare to it visually, and the story it top notch. I can tell you the game is not going away permenantly. NCsoft will be shutting down it's servers in Feb, but the game will be back. You just need to stay tuned. 

Are you guys serious? How many games share the UT, Cry, and Havok engines? Do you seriously think that there is no shared code? I see no proof that this is the case with these two games, but please feel free to amuse yourselves with the speculation. 

 I've worked in teh gaming industry for over 20 years, and if RG is a failure, then you can pretty much say 99% of the game development community is a failure, or even the industry as a whole. I think after dealing with PlayNC, and seeing how the industry is going with publishing as a whole. It probably turned him off to the industry. It gets to a lot of developers. Not to metion the kind of perspective leaving the planet and looking down on earth from space might give someone. It might make someone contimplate what contribution they've made to the world. Making games doesnt stand up to something like a Nobel Prize. I can see why someone might do something drastic after such an experience like that. I'm sure the realization of his actions probably hit him much later.  I'm sure we will have a few of these moments in our lives. I know I constantly ask myself these days if I've done enough good in my time here, or is it time to quit goofing around and do somethign real. I think a lot of us creative types go through this as we get older. Usually I just go back to whatever it is I am doing, but some days I get up and go do something good for someone. You should try it!

That's my perspective.

It's good to hear the game is coming together finally. I was in the beta, and played after launch, but like others I found the game to be unfinished at that point. If they offer a free trial, or temp reactivation like they did recently I may try the game after they add the new models. I doubt that I would stick with it. There are so many games on the horizon that I am intersted in right now, but it would be nice to log in and see what they've done.

Just a note about the UI comments. You can change the UI from FPS/MMO style if you want. Ive studied and applied UID (User Interface Design) for 20 years in the game industry. I can tell you it is very logical to click the index finger to fire your weapon in the game. Think about it hard enough and you can probably figure out why that is. It has something to do with your "trigger finger."

As far as I can see most of the information I am reading here is completly wrong about the game. Please, if you want to know something about a game, experience it for yourself, and take the time while you are doing that to really learn the game. First impressions are rarely accurate. I make a habbit to not comment on a game unless I've spanned the entire level range. I often find that what I would have said sooner would have been much different. It also gives me the time to find the thing I was not aware of like the auctions house/economy, dungeons/caves, Clans, and crafting areas...and so forth. All of which *are* in Tabula Rasa.

Tabula Rasa is a decent MMO, its not perfect, but none are.

More importantly there is an obvious connection between how much time we are willing to spend testing a game, and how quickly we are to form an opinion about it. Both of which speak volumes about this community. I've been monitoring these forums for about a year, and I am surprised to see that a large majority of the user based information is inaccurate. If you want information on a game, or to critic it. I highly suggest you go to the game companies forums, where you will get the real facts. People feel free to post what ever they want here because they think no one is watching, or of any autority to correct them. Leaving the floor open to misinformatiin on a massive scale. Take it for what it is worth.