City of Heroes - finally, a GOOD MMORPG?

CrusaderX said:

I waiting for WoW too. But I don't expect it to be released anytime soon. It may not even be out until Christmas, or even after.

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I think that's a bit of a pessimistic estimate. While it's certainly possible that WoW could take that long to come out, I doubt it. The beta test has been going very well so far, and the feedback by the testers has resulted in a beta patch with many new changes. Accoding to the folks at Blizzard, the beta test will take 5+ months total, meaning the soonest that the beta test will end is August. Once the beta testing ends and the game goes gold, it'll take 2-3 weeks for the CDs to be manufactured and the game to be shipped to stores. My estimate is that the game will be out in September or October.

But back to the topic, I've been hearing good things about City of Heroes from one of my friends. The MMORPG industry is one of the most competitive areas of the video game world, and it should be interesting to see how well CoH does compared to other big upcoming MMORPGs such as Lineage 2, Everquest 2, and World of Warcraft.

One thing I have to say about WoW is the Blizzard has a rep for they're games to take a long time to come out. But when they do come out, they are almost bug free and no major problems. This is a good thing.

This is true...but I think that the MMORPG arena is going to be a serious test for them. When they released Starcraft or Warcraft, those games were whoe when released. The expansions received equal testing, despite being considerably smaller revisions...but once finished, development ended.

The trouble with MMORPGs is the continued desire for new content. One of Asheron's Calls greatest strengths was the ever-changing storyline. Every month, new features came out, new graphics, new locations, new monsters and bugfixes galore. But new content cannot be tested the way that Blizzard normally tests, and the demand never stops. All the major online games are constantly tweaking their content - based on bug reports, based on player feedback and based on developer intent.

I would not be suprised to discover that Blizzard is intending to stagger the release of some of the content for this very purpose. But testing something is far different from releasing it live to potentially tens of thousands of players. After 3 years of AC, it was interesting to see how such things evolved.

What I'd really like to see is Blizzard make their code base protected, in some fashion. A major problem with AC, IMHO, was that people figured out how to crack part of the monthly patch, and were able to pull out new objects and graphics that were included (which took a lot of the fun out of things, I thought).

I was able to play City of Heroes during the last two days of Beta, and it was a total blast. The graphics are excellent, the gameplay is alot of fun, and the game is very solid and stable. The end of Beta event last night was a massive alien invasion (complete with a HUGE mothership appearing in the city's sky) and the game didn't crash at all despite a ton of characters onscreen at the same time.

Go here for a summary of the end of Beta battle, with screenshots

Granted, my Beta experience was very limited, but I'm sold. I'll be buying the game on release.

One of the things I was pleasantly surprised about is that every archetype seems to be solo-viable; you don't have to group in order to have fun or progress your character. There were a few occasions where I went on a mission and found the baddies too tough to handle alone, but in those cases I simply went on another mission or stopped random crimes on the streets until I gained a level, and then went back to the original mission. The one exception to this that I've seen was in one particular zone (Perez Park) where the baddies tend to spawn in large groups of six or more.

Even though I generally tend to play solo, I'd have to say that I spent more time grouped in CoH during the 2 or 3 weeks I was in beta than I've spent grouped in the entire 10 or 11 months I've been playing SWG. Grouping in CoH is easy and painless. There's no arguing over who gets what loot; the game hands out the rewards round-robin style so everyone gets their turn.

As far as the big Rikti Invasion went last night, I couldn't say. They never showed up in the instance of King's Row I was playing in.

At any rate, I'm already jonesin' for Sunday, when the pre-order headstart kicks in.

The more I read and hear abor City of Heros, the more I want to accually try it. And I hate MMORPG's. Tryed EQ, hated it.

Never having played EQ, I couldn't really give opinions on how CoH differs from that experience. I can say that coming from SWG, City of Heroes feels, for lack of a better phrase, less MMOG-y. Heh, I'm not really sure if that makes sense... for me its kind of like playing a superhero action game, except that there are other heroes around, and if I feel like it, I can join forces with them. I find it really easy to get into, and I don't feel compelled to play every waking minute so that I don't "fall behind."

Of course, as with any game, YMMV. If you do decide to give it a shot, feel free to give me a shout in game, if you are so inclined. I'll be bustin' heads as Carcharodon on Freedom server come launch.

KenM said:

One thing I have to say about WoW is the Blizzard has a rep for they're games to take a long time to come out. But when they do come out, they are almost bug free and no major problems. This is a good thing.

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My only worry about WoW is that everything I read makes it sound like any othe rmmorpg out there. Sure maybe it will be less buggy on release because of blizzard quality controls but nothing else seems ot set it apart. About the only thing it has going for it form my perspecitvie is its a world I'm familiar with with a lore and history I'm aware of. I mean crap all there archtypes are the same as every other mmorpgs archtypes even.

There's the warriar(duh everyone will have that)
there's the paladin(warriror/minor healing)
the priest (healing/CC)
the wizard (blasting/teleports)
the warlock (pet class with Dot's, and dark magic)
the hunter (nature pet, some stealth and a ranged weapon)
the druid (nature spellcaster about the only unique thing is the shapechanging)
the rogue (sneaking/backstabing).

It has a fairly unique artisitc style, whether that's good or bad its up to you, still everything I've read tells me its just EQ with WoW trappings.

Now COH seems like a whole different thing. Totally different genre though the archtypes could probably be shown to be similar to fantasy game archtypes. The sidekick thing rocks, gameplay rocks etc. It's like a online version of freedom force with a bit more modern comic book feel. Which in my opinion rocks. Too bad I don't got a computer to run it on, so my friend whoose getting it may start seeing me a lot more often soon.

I've played in the beta for a couple weeks, and I'm not all that impressed. I'm a big fan of the genre (all 3 of my PbP games are MnM) and I was very impressed with the hype (after NWN I don't get very impressed by hype anymore), but while it looks better than EQ, and plays somewhat differently than EQ, it sure felt like I was playing EQ again.

Which makes me think I'm just not much of a fan of MMORPGs. If they're up your alley, you'll probably like this, it does have some unique qualities.

Well, after exhaustive research (read: procrastinating when I should be studying for finals), I ordered City of Heroes off of Amazon, which saves me $5 plus sales tax and no shipping fee. I've never played a MMORPG before. Not ever. The closest you could say I've come to it would be Diablo II and its Expansion--which was pretty darn static (but I loved it anyways).

A big hangup of mine is the monthly fee. Already having to spend ~$45 for the software, and then another $15/month to keep playing after the trial month? That was a huge hurdle to overcome. So why did I buy? The game looks gorgeous, for one. It shouldn't ever get old, provided that it's as successful as it seems it will be. What really did it was the lack of PvP, lack of an all-important player-based economy (no more spamming channels with "I've got Frostburn gloves for trade!" or its equivelent!), and the character creation. The costume designer, from what I've seen, seems limitless! That's just too cool for school in my book. And, you can play pretty much anything you want...just so long as you don't name your character after DC/Marvel properties.

I'll tell you how I like it after finals (another bonus to Super Saver Shipping is no procrastination guilt--I'll be done!), hopefully it'll be a rave review.