City of Heroes/Villains
ZupiCo
Custom titles rule! Join Date: 2003-03-22 Member: 14792Members
Custom titles rule! Join Date: 2003-03-22 Member: 14792Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Do you play?</div>I picked it up last week, found the Good vs. Evil pack (City of Heroes and Villains combined) and decided to try it, in these times of WoW-madness.
I like it a lot so far, the character generator is totally awesome, the combat system feels more rewarding than those of other MMORPG's, and it doesn't have any of the equipment hysteria usually associated with those kind of games. It's definitely more action-oriented than many of its competitors.
So, do you play it? My account name is Siggesigge and I'm playing on the Union server.
[Edit] Apparently, there are threads on this subject, silly me and not using search. Although those threads didn't mention the Good vs. Evil pack (which is fairly new, I think), which is a really good deal if you haven't checked the game out earlier. [/Edit]
I like it a lot so far, the character generator is totally awesome, the combat system feels more rewarding than those of other MMORPG's, and it doesn't have any of the equipment hysteria usually associated with those kind of games. It's definitely more action-oriented than many of its competitors.
So, do you play it? My account name is Siggesigge and I'm playing on the Union server.
[Edit] Apparently, there are threads on this subject, silly me and not using search. Although those threads didn't mention the Good vs. Evil pack (which is fairly new, I think), which is a really good deal if you haven't checked the game out earlier. [/Edit]
Comments
If enough people can convince me to come back to COH.... I will.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wikipedia+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wikipedia)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Payment options
US dollars
* 1 month for $14.99
* 3 months for $41.85 ($13.95 per month)
* 6 months for $77.70 ($12.95 per month)
* 12 months for $143.40 ($11.95 per month)
Beginning April 5, 2006, NCsoft began adding sales tax to the above subscription charges for customers living in the states of California, Texas, Arizona, and Minnesota, due to having a legal business presence in those states. [3]
Euros
* 1 month for €12.99
* 3 months for €34.99 (€11.66 per month)
* 6 month for €64.99 (€10.83 per month)
British pounds
* 1 month for £8.99
* 3 months for £23.99 (£7.99 per month)
* 6 months for £44.99 (£7.49 per month)
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's a shame It's p2p.. I mean, I don't really like them. The game itself looks awesome, but I'm not really wanting to pay due I'm broke at the moment.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, you do get a month of free play when you buy it, enough to try it out at least.
I'm not sure if it's because every 'villain' I tried to make ended up being a nice person (hard to play a baddie when your first natural instinct is to help people :s ) or because I never even felt particularly villainous (even the kidnap missions felt suspiciously like rescue ones).
Wasn't a fan of the architecture either and the archetypes didn't actually suit me at all.
CoH was almost just right for me... the stuff that was patched into it thanks to the arrival of CoV like enhanced character customisation and the counterpart to mayhem missions make it tempting stuff.
Sadly they've fallen into what I call the 'guild trap'.
For those who don't know this I don't have anything against 'guilds' per se; I do however believe that guild <b>systems</b> are the death of any social aspect in an MMO.
See, a guild is just a bunch of people going "yeah! we're a team and stuff!". If they want they might even make up some kooky name, website and things. Whether you like it or not some people will always do this. No point in stopping them as it's fairly harmless on it's own but I don't agree with giving them the tools because that is a guild system.
The torrent of destruction that is a guild system is a set of mechanics designed to encourage and essentially 'define' a guild within a game. This is things like guild chat channels, guild-only rewards, etc.
To show how each aspect is destructive I'll give a quick lil example of each...
<b>Guild Chat:</b> Before the advent of guilds in MMOs you could walk into any 'hub' area and chat to pretty much everyone there. Everyone was fairly talkative and the cities and gathering points felt alive.
As games appeared with guild systems in them the universe of MMOs slowly went silent; this effect accelerated as people started using 3rd party elements like ventrillo/teamspeak.
In the end you find yourself in a world where people only talk to their 'guildies' in special chats only they can hear. The world for a new player is deafeningly silent... and cold.
Compare the bustling cities of Ragnarok Online in it's hayday with open markets and people chatting to the clinical silence of CoH/CoV. Conversation is sparse by comparison.
<b>Guild Rewards:</b> In CoH you get 'base funds' for every person you recruit. Net result is people try and cram as many strangers into their guild as possible to afford the nice stuff. You see all kinds of schemes like this in many games including WoW's "minimum member quota" on the roster you use to make one in the first place. This inevitably ends with people turning up at places where new players start spamming it with recruitment messages and generally leading to the creation of guilds/clans full of people who probably won't get along very well and inevitably the guild collapses or falls victim to the wonders of drama.
The scariest thing is that if you played CoH before and after supergroups and their bases were introduced you can see the effects first hand all in one game... it's really not nice :s
<b>Guild Exclusivity:</b> somewhat like guild rewards but more along the lines of tabbards and having the guld name under your character name or whatever. These don't encourage the guild itself to recruit but make the guilds seem 'elite' or 'exclusive' and so draw the niave into thinking they <b>need</b> to be in a guild. This is destructive if you ask me... the only reason someone should <b>ever</b> want to be in a guild is because they get on with the people in that guild or they share a common goal. Doing it for some kind of perceived prestige or falsely imprinted 'need' is just a recipe for disaster.
There's a wealth of books on the effects these kinds of things in other environments have that are veeery interesting reading including a rather fun example where they split a group of volunteers into groups based on eye colour which had less than funny results.
In a nutshell it leads to elitism, xenophobia and rifts in the community. This is down to the system though, not the guilds (though a guild comprising of nice individuals may avoid the horrors... for a while :p ).
~ahem~
Rant aside, I think CoH was the better of the two but I got bored of the combat a long time back and... well... there's not much else to do than fight in CoH that offers any kind of advancement or long-lasting fun :/
Good while the novelty lasts though ^^