All Posts by ElJackyl

I was browsing here the other day saw they had switched this over to f2p. I decided to give it a shot. For what it is, it's pretty cool. Lots of abilities to switch around. Fast paced gameplay. I've been running it on low with a mid range computer and it seldom lags. Keep in mind don't go in expecting a huge interactive world, it's not that type of game. It's basically online hubs where you develop your character and then play various pvp arena type matches. But it's one of the better f2p games I've run across, and best of all, it's fun to play.

Hmmm...troll anyone? Not that it matters. But I think some of you have your expectations for these games set a little too high, and not very realistic. You want awesome graphics, but no load screens? Regardless of your obviously nuclear powered machine, how many people are going to be on at the same time before it becomes a lag fest? You people don't seem to understand that loading/instancing is sometimes needed to keep the game running smoothly. If you don't want load screens, maybe you should buy a console system and play Oblivion or something.

So I just experienced my first 48 hours of The Matrix Online. I will have to say that I was very impressed with some aspects of the game. While it came up short in other areas. I really liked the overall presentation of the game. Character creation was fun but way too limited in the amount of starting options for clothing. The atmosphere is dead on and you almost feel like you are being put in the Matrix world. I like the combat system, the hardline system, it's all very interesting and fun.

The biggest complaint I have about this game is it's pretty clear it's on the D List as far as SOE is concerned. It's probably five guys in a closet working on this thing. They have a great license and if they put in a little more effort it could be a truly great game. The Ultimate Matrix Collection is coming out on Blu Ray pretty soon and this would be a perfect opportunity to relaunch the game. They could even do a strong internet only thing like EVE does. They are already giving a free trial for the Station Launcher but they don't push this game at all. The only advertising or anything they do for it is that it's part of the Station Pass. This game deserves a second look and needs to be marketed properly.

Um... how is this even a discussion. I have tried EVE,WoW,LoTR,MxO,and CoH all without a credit card. On this very website EVE states that no CC is needed. Actually a way they restrict unlimited free trials is by emailing you the activation code. Once you use a trial code, you can't use another for that account. Of course you can make multiple accounts but you can never make any progress because you will never be able to use your characters.

Let me first say I am not a WoW player at all. I like the Warcraft games and I gave it a try, it was ok. I also gave the LoTR a try. I don't see how you can start this thread by saying all the people blinded by WoW should come over to this game. When the engine and the overall look of the game is clearly derivative of WoW. As soon as I started playing it I was like...hmmmm...it's awfully similar to WoW. Now I will agree that the community, storyline, pvp, etc is totally different. But the base look of the game is so damn near close I am not sure how Turbine didn't get sued. Look at the shop and the menu screens. The bubbles are the same, fonts are the same, when you target enemies it looks the same. You could almost say it's WoW with LoTR on the box. I'm not trashing the game at all I'm just stating that it seems they went with what they thought worked for WoW and didn't bother making a game that was more......for lack of a better word......Tolkienish. 

And no the text and the storylines are not enough for it to be Tolkienish. Something is missing from the overall experience.

All of the above is pretty much true. If you are a comic book fan you can't beat it. The character creation is really cool. The power combinations are great. Also, Coh and Cov are actually two seperate games that you get for the one price. CoV is not quite as big but the classes are different enough that it's a fresh alternative. They are also adding two epic villian classes. If you are crazy about gear this is not the game for you. The only gear really are your enhancements to your powers. But there is enough room for diversification there. The invention system is ok. But I think the best part is the player community. I play on Pinnacle and it's never hard to find a group for help. Or if you just need to ask something someone will always respond. I find the community in games like WoW and EQ2 to be somewhat elitist. Everyone in CoH seems to be more laid back.

The cons are also true. Missions are heavily instanced which some people don't like. But I think it's cool to have your own mission going with the team you have. No mob camping, etc. You can also crank up the difficulty if you have a large group resulting in mad xp. It is broken up into zones but the game is still quite large. Also a lot of these things help keep a game running smoothly. Yes in a perfect world it would all be persistent but that's just not realistic. End game content is a little lacking so if you're the type that likes to blow through to level 50 in a week you may get bored. But there is plenty of room to replay with an alt. Some more endgame and balanced pvp content and this game will be sticking around for a while.

One addition to the comments above is that you can respec your powers at levels 24,34,and 44. So if you make a mistake or don't like your power choices you can redo them from level 1.

So here is something I was thinking of in light of the announcement for the animated film and TV series. This would be the perfect time to totally rebuild everything from the ground up. Or even better just scrap this all together and come out with a whole new Star Wars MMO. They have the perfect oppurtunity to bring in new players and maybe win back some old ones. The game is defenitely showing it's age and there is so much of the old code floating around that it's just a mess. Some of the features they have put in seem interesting but it's not very intuitive at all. I challenge a brand new player to get a meaningful space career going on. It's crazy. I seriously am not here to bash the game or anything like that I'm just saying that I think we all agree it needs a fresh start. It reminds me of the Batman series. That series was dead in the water until they went back to the begining. Now it's on the verge of becoming greatness. So if SOE totally scrapped the game and came up with something that was maybe not pre CU but different than what we have, would you check it out? Or if they came up with a completely new Star Wars themed MMO? Or is there a chance that another developer with access to the IP could make a new game?

Just to give a quick backround, I'm not a pre CU vet. I played the game about a year ago and enjoyed it with some friends. I had gotten a new PC and wanted to check out the different mmo's. Being a Star Wars fan I gave this an honest shot. I was aware of the game before and from reading the forums knew about the NGE, CU, etc. My honest opinion after trying out some other games is that so much more could be done with the star wars IP.  I took about a year off from it and just played for a little while recently. Usually if you've been away from a game for a while it's kind of fresh when you come back in. This was the exact opposite. Everything seems the same and there is nothing to guide you into the new features like Beast Master, Storyteller, etc. The fire is just not there for me. MY GF plays EQ2 and right now I'm playing CoH. CoH is a lot better now than when I tried it about a year ago. Just an example of what a game can do if it is in the right hands. If they come up with a new game I am totally there, until then I'm watching from a distance.

It is true that integrated graphics cards used to be the kiss of death. Nowadays with people watching movies and multi-tasking they are making the integrated cards better. My desktop has an integrated geforce6100 and it runs EQ2,SWG,EVE,and COH. I just jacked up the RAM and it gave the system enough memory to work with. I'm getting ready to put a dedicated card in which will put my performance through the roof. The laptop card is a 333 mb card. With the dual core processor it doesn't seem to tax the 2gb RAM at all. With my personal experience the integrated nvidia compatible cards do better than the integrated ATI cards. But that's just a personal observation.

I just bought an Acer Aspire 5720-4126. Got it on sale it CC for $529 which was a steal. The same PC is now 100 bucks more. But you can shop around. It has a 1.6 ghz dual core, 2gb of ram, integrated card but it's decent. We bought it for my girlfriend to play EQ2 and it works great. If you shop around you can pay about $600 and have a decent running machine.