Profile: redcrest
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• • Whats everyone opinion on why this game isnt super big?

  • For me and my former supergroup gang, it was the repetitive feel.  I believe others in the thread refer to the tilesets, which we held as sizeable part of it.  Reskinning the instance halls had only a temporary boost.  Someone questioned how it was different than WoW in this regard.  Its true there is some repetition in WoW, but I've been months into both games, and have not seen nearly as much there.  WoW especially has the advantage in the "outdoor" areas  which are vastly different.  Even in dungeon/raiding vs. taskgroups in CoX, I often see unique setups in the WoW dungeons whereas I've been on taskgroups that send you into the same door mission setups as you would normally do. (One nice exception to this that comes to mind was the Terra Volta reactor, but as I recall, even it has several cookie-cutter door missions leading up to the final event)

    There are increasing improvements.  The expansion zones seem to keep getting better, though even by the time of the second Rikti invasion, many of the Rikti corridors often looked like reskins of common halls. 

    One other point that was eventually tiresome, but not previously mentioned I think, was the user interface.  After playing several other MMOs, it felt clunky, even restrictive.  I was not the only one to comment on this.  I convinced some skilled adult players to leave their MMOs and try CoX only to have them leave because of the UI.  The inability to more fluidly move your camera angle in 360 to study the whole battlefield was one sighted problem.  I didn't know all the lingo involved, though I understood the fluidity issue having played the comparison in games like WoW, LotRO, and TR.  Someone referred to CoX as "top down", which I gather meant that the camera axis started at the character's head.    I've heard the "Midnight" expansion is offering different UI's, which is grand, but am unsure whether the camera movement issues are addressed as well.

     

  • Posted: 5/25/08 10:39 PM
    City of Heroes
• • Endgame?

  • Having been away from CoH for 2 months I was startled by the talk of User Created Missions mentioned in this thread and went off to do some reading.  Here's the quote from "Positron's" 4-year state-of-the-game speech:

    I can’t tell you how excited I am for our game’s future, and although we have some major announcements yet to be made, one of the things I can talk about is a feature that we are planning. Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story arcs for your characters and others to participate in. You’ll be able to pick the map, villain group, and objectives, as well as write the dialog and any clues needed for the missions. When you are satisfied with it, you can upload it and have other players across all servers play it and rate it. Fame will come to the players whose stories rate the best overall. It is features like these that we never dreamed of including when we first shipped, but are excited to be able to offer players very soon.
    

    This is quite the teaser!  There's a lot left to be explained, such as how XP and rewards will work in this system, but even if 90% of the submitted missions and story arcs are half-baked efforts and bad l33t dialog, I'm sure the other 10% may well create an endless endgame worth playing.  There are some very clever fanfic writers in the game, and should they be able to coordinate their works with a good fight arrangement, it could be epic!

    And in regard to the CoV content, I'm pretty sure they will be addressing CoV better in the future now that CoV epics are nearly here.  Since the complete acquisition by NCSoft, they seem to have a renewed interest in CoV as well as CoH.

     

  • Posted: 5/14/08 9:24 AM
    City of Heroes
• • Lots of negative threads but the game is good

  • I loved TR for its run-and-gun action, (no rooting necessary) and its wild, desperate fights at control points.  I also found other innovations like the footlockers and cloning to be wonderful.

    I played in beta, bought the game, contributed most of the initial articles about Pools zone to the wiki, and left at 40.  I left after an extended period of time of frustration where things weren't fixed, even though claims were made that they were, like frequent disconnects by the game that totally wasted all my work in instances, and the whole lag issue with the appropriately named Mires zone, which returned to its problems quickly after the announcement.  I got the distinct impression that problems in TR were like the hydra: lop one head off, two more grew back.  By the time they also made several character changes, including the body/mind/spirit point changes (admittedly much needed), I felt like I no longer knew my beloved guardian and could no longer use him effectively anyway, so I reluctantly moved back to an old MMO.  I believe someone else in the thread mentioned moving away from the game for 6 months or so, and that's how I have felt: like the game was potentially awesome, but half baked.  Put it in the oven for another 6 months.

    But I appreciate the positive statements in this thread and would really like to know:  How, if at all, have they progressed?  There was a lot of hype about Personal Armor Units, crafting changes, personal squads, flashpoints, and beefed up PvP action including control points.  There was also talk of an expansion pack with another planet, which I gathered would be released around the 1 year mark.  I see from statements here that crafting still lacks, but what of the others?  And what has changed in, say, the last two months that you would pitch to convince a former player to return?

    Btw, I agree with the OP about a mailbox need.  I also feel there is a real need for resource gathering to be added to crafting.  The lore shows a ragtag clone army trying to survive.  The Pools Snakepit has you scavaging for spare parts, as an example.  Wouldn't surface mining and medical herbology make sense in context? And it would be one more thing that isn't  the "go there, kill that" pattern that eventually creates boredom.

  • Posted: 5/12/08 11:21 PM
    Tabula Rasa