Champions Online

[Hijacker]

So I was looking at the article in the most recent PC Gamer about the upcoming Champions Online MMO. After reading the article I went on to looking up info on the web about it. I have to say I'm intrigued with it. I wanted to play City of Heroes when it came out, but I never got around to trying it out. Bill Roper (of Blizzard North/Diablo fame) is heading up this project, so I'm pretty confident it will be a fun game.

The only major problem I'm seeing right now is that they're not putting metamorphs (chapechangers, Mr. Fantastic) in at launch. I was really hoping for that class to be available from the get go, but Cryptic said they want more time to properly implement the class. Hopefully in the first few content patches they'll put them in.

[ProudNissanFreak]

I played the City of Heroes demo and wasn't impressed by it. It was mainly my computer, but the visuals weren't that great, nor was the game play.

[MinisterofDOOM]

If Roper's involved it'll likely be good.

But...superheroes? REALLY? Ugh. No thanks. Just about the most UNinteresting setting I can think of for any game, especially an MMO.

What a terrible way to followup Mythos.

[Hijacker]

I'm excited about it honestly. I like super hero settings. Also, after 4.5 years of WoW, I'm ready for something not fantasy. I would have been perfectly happy with film noir, steam punk, plain modern day, etc.

[Hijacker]

Small bump. Got my closed Beta key today. Not that I can talk about it past that point

[MinisterofDOOM]

D'oh. Still, that's pretty cool.

[Nali]

Small bump. Got my closed Beta key today. Not that I can talk about it past that point

Why cant you speak about it?Is it under some sort of NDA?

Im really curious about this game, the nerd in me wants to play it, but then the Blind fanboy knows that Marvel Ultimate Alliance is coming out soon.

[Hijacker]

Yeah. Cryptic put an NDA out on the beta. I think it'll be rescinded when the open beta goes live on the 17th.

I've liked a lot of the things I've read about it, and it looks gorgeous. I'm taking the opportunity to get into the beta to test drive it.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I've been looking into this more and despite my initial dislike of the superhero setting, I'm liking a lot of what the game has to offer. I'm going to have to give the trial period a go when it finally hits shelves. The classless character system and deep customization are exactly what I've been saying mummorpuggers need for years now.

[Hijacker]

I'll be able to talk about it by Monday once the NDA is lifted. However, I will say I like the game a lot. I get to live out my childhood fantasies of being a super hero.

[JSPADES]

Hi, all!

I'm new to the forums here. Just joined tonight after reading a few threads (some rather typical, others full of DRAMA).

I'm only chiming in here because I've been playing City of Heroes since last fall, and just recently got a closed beta key that afforded me access to the Champions Online closed beta for about a 10-day period (give or take).

I have to say that I'm not unimpressed with the look and playability of CO. I'm not really a hard-core CoH player myself, but I'm certainly more adapted to its playing style since I have more experience playing it. I shied away from the new superhero mmorpg game foray that CoH did back in 2004'ish when it launched, mainly because I wasn't sure how well it would take off. Of course, by this point, it's easy to see that it definitely has. I look forward to playing CO in open-beta once it goes live next week (IIRC).

All this having been said, I really appreciate Bill Roper for the work he did on the Diablo series while he was at Blizzard North, but after experiencing firsthand the travesty that turned out to be Hellgate: London (I was an alpha tester, a beta tester, and a lifetime subscriber), I honestly have to say that I won't be contributing financially to anything that has Bill Roper's name attached to it. He was the founder and CEO of Flagship Studios (the company which produced Hellgate: London), and after making some thoroughly ill-advised business decisions with his company and their product, FSS tanked and ultimately lost the rights to their own Intellectual Property (Mr Roper apparently put the game code itself up as collateral for the business loan used to fund the launch of the company and/or its efforts in developing the HG:L game). The company name has even become coined as a verb which connotes getting shafted, as in "Buddy, you've been Flagshipped!"

So, while I'll play the CO beta while it's out, I won't be giving anything that even bears a passing resemblance to money to play online once the game goes to commercial release.

-b-

[MinisterofDOOM]

Hellgate was a different story, though. It was a non-massively-multiplayer game that tried to pull of the subscription thing. It also had a lot of issues. But the situation wasn't really comparable to CO. That was a new studio looking for footing and their first project didn't work out. Roper's only a small part of the CO project, which has it's roots firmly in a well-established company. Also, Flagship's other project, Mythos, WAS shaping up to be a great game from what I saw (I watched it like a hawk from earliest whispers to sad demise).

CO doesn't stand to fall prey to the same faults that claimed Hellgate because it's an entirely different type of game from an entirely different company.

I feel sorry for the Hellgate Founder's Club members, though. In fact I was just discussing the parallels between it and the limited-time-only extended memberships being offered pre-order for Champions. The thing with them is that I'd never feel comfortable paying $200 for a game I haven't played. It seems stupid to me that they're limited time only when they'll only really be a valid purchase once people have actually had a chance to play the game. I don't think the game will tank, but $250 ($50 is too much for a PC game anyway...$40 should have been the box price) is completely unjustifiable for a game that I can't even say I like or not.

[Hijacker]

The NDA is finally lifted from CO.

My impressions of the beta so far:

I like the feel of combat. They have kept it simple and have found an alternative to the standard wait for your cooldown style of combat. Now you just wait for an energy pool to build from your auto-attack and when you have enough you can use your cost abilities. Even then, a few of them have cooldowns (usually ranging in the 5-10 second range).

So far I've played an Ice framework and a Might framework without an overall understanding of the stats system. Since the last playtest ended on Friday, I did some digging around to get a better understanding of the stats mechanics, and I'll be using open ended frameworks to allow for better stat customization.

The game world itself is fairly well designed. I have issues with the fact that the game isn't seamless. You have to zone between major areas, and all interior spaces are instanced. The reason is because it is modern day, and our planet is a bit larger than how game companies tend to create their game worlds. Since the main zones so far are Detroit (Millennium City is built on the ruins of Detroit), a portion of Canada, and a desert zone in the Southwest US, they couldn't interconnect them without having the players spend hours fast travelling. Instead, you zone via a helo (martini-copter is what we termed them on the closed beta boards). I haven't been to Lumeria or Monster Island, so I can't comment on them nor can I comment on end game longevity.

The character creator is nice and expansive. Some CoX vets are upset that the amount of items in the costume inventory isn't as large as what CoX had, but NCSoft holds the rights to that game, and this one is still in beta technically. So there are a lot more things to add. Plus there are items to unlock in game as well as buy through microtransactions.

The main complaint I've had so far is really with the soundscape. There's little audio feedback when messing with inventory, and a lot of the powers I've played with so far are wimpy sounding. They really should have a more visceral feel to them.

We've had a few buggy quests so far, but the dev team is pretty quick to fix them. The dev team also listens to the beta testers (at least the CB testers) and implement changes when necessary. People were having issues with the bags and inventory system not being very intuitive, so it was changed. I think they were trying to avoid going totally WoW with the interface (the standard UI is very WoW-like) so they were trying something new with the bag management in one window. The complaints were that you couldn't access each bag easily. So it was changed to be able to open all bags simultaneously.

As far as the UI goes. It's very good and functional. One thing I really like is quest tracking. So far, the quest tracker will always update your map with GPS locations for objectives. Also, the quest log tracks completed quests, so if you need to find out if you've done all the quests in a particular area, you'll know which ones you have done.

They've already placed an achievement system in. They call them perks. The points you gain from completing perks can be spent on items in game. So there's an incentive to actually complete achieves aside from having a big e-peen.

And to Basilikon, you might have ill feelings towards Roper for HG:L, but you forget that he was behind a lot of popular Blizzard titles, primarily both Diablos. To be honest, more people on the CO boards have issues with Jack Emmert than they do with Bill Roper. As for the game tanking, I doubt it. CoX is doing good, even with being sold completely off to NCSoft. I can say with certainty that while I don't see CO being a WoW killer, it will definitely be a good game to play. However, I just wish they would give out trials instead of the whole "pay a ton of money before you even play". I wouldn't mind plunking down cash for a 6 month or lifetime sub, but I wouldn't do it if I couldn't actually try the game out first. If they extended the subscriptions to be available after launch, they would be better off IMO.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I guess the open beta installer is kind of broken, which has led to some issues getting the game running for a lot of people. The installer installs files to the wrong folder, leading the launcher to think it needs to redownload those files (over 2GB worth). Some file-swapping to get things into their correct folders using the latest installer reduces patch size to 56MB rather than 3.6GB (!!!!!).

[Hijacker]

The patcher has been effed up all evening. I had Marenta download the client on my account the other day to avoid open beta server bottlenecks

[Hijacker]

I have to say that after having uninhibited access for a week, I'm in love with this game. If anyone gets it, hit me up at @brick_house in game.

[Loki]

From what I've been hearing, City of Heroes is better. I devoted many, many hours to CoH but have since become semi-retired. It's a really fun game most of the time.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Never played CoH so I can't compare the two.

I'm definitely enjoying CO, though. It's not perfect but it's a lot of fun. I expect that with time the wrinkles (and I'm not talking about bugs, but the kind of fine-tuning that takes time) will get ironed out and it'll be even better.

Word of advice for any open beta people who have characters they like (at least appearance-wise): If you use the "save" button in the costume designer (either during initial character creation or at a tailor after you complete the intro segment) it'll save an image file LOCALLY that you can use to re-load that exact costume/appearance later. Since it's saved locally, that means it'll survive the beta server wipe (unless they change how it works). Which means you'll be able to recreate your characters EXACTLY when the official servers start up. I've done this for all 3 of my "good" characters. Just make sure you go to a tailor and choose to edit your costume, then save it, and you'll be able to start fresh with the same look.

So far, I'm having the most fun with my robot and telekinesis characters. My robotank character is a tun of fun, wading through mobs like they're not even there. And telekinesis is pretty versatile, bringing together the strengths of strength, dual-blades, and ranged energy attacks plus some good defensive stuff.

[Hijacker]

MOD, give me your game name now We can go beat up some giant robots tomorrow for the end of beta event.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Sounds good, I was hoping to get in some robot smashing tomorrow...I want one of those pets. I don't have any characters above level 12 or 13 though. I spent too much time messing with different configurations to progress very far with any of them.

@MinisterofDOOM

On that subject, I'm not sure how I feel about the account-wide friends thing. I liked that in WoW I could have characters some people didn't know about. But at the same time, this makes managing your friends lists with people you aren't trying to hide from much simpler.

[Hijacker]

I like the account wide deal honestly. I rarely hid from people in WoW. The only time I used account invisibility to my benefit was to two box and confuse people.

From what I heard, the devs may be handing out instant level ups today so everyone can participate in the beta event. They had monster island and lumeria closed for beta, so there's no questing hubs past 30 (which is the level I'm at currently)

[MinisterofDOOM]

Sweet, hopefully I'll get a free level up so I can actually help take down some Mega Destroids.

I'll be on some time this evening after I wake up. Probably sometime between 6 and 10 pm.

BTW, do you closed beta guys get the early start access? My gamestop preorder (only reason I bothered with it) lets me start back up again on friday rather than waiting until next tuesday. I'm surprised they're doing that...3 days of downtime after the beta's kind of rushing it. But it'll be nice to be able to play the game this weekend.

[Hijacker]

Only preorders get it. I pre-ordered from gamestop, so I'll be in it.

When you get to MC, there's a cop to talk to that will give you free 40.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Rock on.

[Loki]

All this talk is making me want to reactivate my CoH account...grrr

[MinisterofDOOM]

I guess the beta has been extended until later today since the servers will be up anyway.

I'm going to wait it out until release, though...no point in boring myself with the low level content already.

My feelings with CO are mixed. While it IS definitely a lot of fun, and fun enough to keep playing...it's not as great as I thought it'd be. However, my hopes are good that with time the content will get fleshed out and the wrinkles smoothed.I think the drop system needs some fine-tuning (I'd prefer more crappy drops over fewer higher quality drops for the purposes of R&D and trading). And the UI needs lots of ease-of-use tweaks (such as some hotkeys opening, but not closing, windows) but the game certainly has the potential to be great. Listening to an interview with Roper, he has basically said the starting content is little more than a foundation on which to build for future content, so hopefully we can expect frequent content additions that perhaps push the envelope a little more than the vanilla game does.

One thing that's weird getting used to is everyone being "solid." Most MMO's have characters who can stand in each other. Really, there are good reasons for that...lag, crowded cities, etc. Collision detection should be ultra-simplified for an MMO. So solid characters introduces some interesting issues.

[Hijacker]

Since they limit the number of people in any given area, the collision detection isn't as big of an issue as one would think. However, I will say that it was a bit of an issue when 30-40 people were trying to bash a mega destroid. I was on my might toon, and it was easy to get pushed around out of melee range.

From what I understand, Cryptic is usually pretty good about designing new content and with a good frequency, so I believe that there will be more content and soon. It's a bit too easy to make it to level cap (I was level 30 within 4 days before they nerfed XP gains), plus with the cap being so low, I can't imagine it'll stay there for long.

I agree with the drop system. I had good gear, however, so 70% of my quest items went to R&D. I really want to give some more of the UNITY missions a try. But since they have Monster Island and Lemuria closed off, you can't do all the missions.

[positron1]

So is this game worth getting because I'm sitting here right now thinking about making a trip to Wal-Mart.

[MinisterofDOOM]

It's good, but has issues. The good news is most of them are things I expect to get sorted out over the game's first couple of months. Primarily, the game has responsiveness and feedback issues.

But despite those issues, it's still a fun game. Character creation depth is excellent, the game looks fantastic visually. Combat is much more involved and mobile than most MMOs. Instead of being penalized for moving and simply toggling auto-attack and watching the fight happen, you're encouraged to stay on the move (and even fly) and abilities work together in ways that keep you more directly involved in the flow of combat. I find it much more enjoyable than other MMOs I've played, which just felt too detached. The storyline/setting strikes a wonderful sweet spot between seriousness and campiness that reminds you you're in a comic book but doesn't undermine itself. Missions are a bit drab at times (much more wow-like than I hoped for) but even the tedious ones are more fun to do thanks to the much more upbeat pace of the game.

One thing worth noting is that while I've been able to run the game with a silky smooth framerate easily even at maxed settings, my roommate's two computers (both dual core and above even recommended requirements for the game) crap themselves and then suffer heart attacks while only just managing to chug along at a very barely playable framerate even at mid-level settings. Sadly, low-level settings cause a catastrophic degree of pop-in which makes the game all but unplayable. Of course, his computers might just be...special, but it really seems like the gap in game performance is incongruous with the tech gap between our machines.

I intend to keep playing Champions for a while. When this month is up, it's down to WoW, Champions, or Eve. I'm bored with WoW, Eve requires too much time investment, and Champions is fresh and fun. So it wins, I think.

[positron1]

I have never ever played a MMO before so could one of you guys give a dumb-down quicky explain of what it is to us newbs...dumb it down pretty good because I'm pretty dumb! How does it play, I heard that unless you have friends it's no fun at all, which leaves me out because I don't play games with anyone I know or befriend.