Memphis_Bill

Some are. But that price is set by the players. And if they're worth millions of INF on the auction house... how are you not having money as a lowbie?
I don't know why yours took "30 minutes" to do. My 50s - several of which, by the way, are quite effective while still primarily on SOs - don't take anywhere near that to do.
... "Enough" being what? You have the same 10 enhancement slots (more than you have slots in powers, in fact, when you start.) Recipes and Enhancements don't start dropping for several levels. You can use them to craft, you can dump them at a vendor, you can put them on the market.
Run any task forces? Wait, no, you didn't. Read any of the explanation of WHY you're doing these things? Oh, that's right, you dismissed that. Yes, the maps get repetitive - we're an instanced game, in a modern city, so to a point it actually makes SENSE one warehouse will look like another. The devs know this, you can see almost every map in game by looking in AE as well.

And you say this like this is not found in any other MMO. Let's see, what have I played lately - Aion. Level 1-40 (see also "Grind burnout") - get money to pay for skills. Kill specific character. Require team to kill specific character. Collect this item and come back. Go talk to NPCs. Get item, take to NPC. Kill specific character. PVP. Collect item. Talk to NPC. Kill baddies 'til you get 10 of item. Talk to NPC. PVP. Collect item. ... hmmm, seems repetitive.

OK, APB. Steal item. Break in and steal item. Arson. Steal car. Steal item. Take or ignore call for backup (PVP.) Steal car. Steal item. Arson. PVP. Steal car. Break in and steal item - god, the game's even more repetitive.

The late Tabula Rasa. Defend base. Kill until you get 10 of item. Talk to NPC. Get item/logos. Defend base. Run around (no travel powers, btw) and talk to NPC. Get item/logos. Talk to chain of NPCs. Kill until you get 10 of item. Talk to NPC.... look, repetitive. Of course, you're also competing with everyone ELSE in the area to kill those same mobs to get 10 of item X, so it takes longer.

DDO - Go to dungeon. Kill all. Get item. Kill rats until you have 10 bat ears. Get item. Talk to NPC. Talk to other NPC. Kill all. Go to dungeon. Kill bats until you have 10 bat ears. Etc, etc, etc.

Sorry, Charlie, ALL MMOs get stuck in repetitive design.
One you actually got right! Of course, the game shipped without PVP, and even at its peak there just wasn't that much interest. Bit of a cycle there - no real interest in PVP = little incentive to do more with PVP = no real interest generated in PVP.

"Research" would have shown that this is being addressed.
To a point.
In which case? Travel powers require *one.* And those earlier powers are often quite useful (Hasten, Combat Jumping, etc.)
Several of which have been corrected by people here. The fighting pool is not needed. Min/maxing is not needed - some do it because they *enjoy* it, yes, and they'll look into certain pools. Acrobatics is not needed - and I don't just mean "Fire tanks can take it," or "IOs are an option." Almost *zero* of my (200+, by the way) characters have it. Yes, some use IOs. Most just flat out *do not need it.* Your "required" powers and pools *are not required.*

Market use. You CAN be a marketeer if you want. Otherwise, drag item to market, list for a price of 6, hit "List item." Item might sell, might not. Might only get 6 inf for it. Might get several million. All depends on what someone's willing to pay. How is this difficult?

Travel - I'm going to have to try to find some case where you actually need to travel for 10-20 minutes, skipping supergroup teleporters, in any case someone over level 5 (where you can get a temporary jetpack by doing the newspaper/radio missions the contact you're *automatically directed to* sends you on) will see. Travel only gets faster as you level up. Were you perhaps just jogging from place to place, not even using sprint? Wait, no, the poorly done review shows you using a jetpack, so we can use that as the baseline.

System performance - I have to think you weren't even using the mac client, as you showed a powermac. Did you look into the settings, or did you just assume "Put everything to max?" There's exactly two times I've seen any reaction that bad - and one time was many, many server upgrades and many years ago, when they released a new issue, pushed trials and had a "come back" event on labor day. The other being their first (around the time of COV) graphics update, where they introduced things like Depth of Field and bloom, and I was running (I believe) a Geforce 5100. That was YEARS ago. No, I don't have high end rigs.

Frankly, your review is unprofessional, poorly presented - it's a rant more than a review, and as I said before, given how you STARTED it, I expected nothing less.

Jeeter Clutch shoes and some phone thing.

... still isn't suppressed. Some ambushes are just set to find you regardless.

/this.

Honestly, for me on most characters, CJ > Stealth primarily for movement (CJ's still cheaper than Ninja Run, end wise) and the immob protection.

Facts that you don't care to acknowledge aren't quite the same league, or are mostly Asian, or free to play (hmm, don't have to pay a sub, why might someone go there...)
No, sorry, you don't know what you're talking about, and you've made that clear with your replies here. You also refuse to admit that, frankly, the review starts biased and stays that way - it's blindingly obvious within the first minute you're not interested in reviewing the game, you aren't coming to it neutrally, and the review is going to reflect that.

So how long is the average subscriber staying on?

Also, you seem to love numbers. Frankly, these "million user" MMOs (which you have yet to name) get big numbers from one area, primarily - Asia. Where's over half of WoW's playerbase? Where is Aion big? Lineage?

And they all have the exact same sort of grindplay (I refuse to call it "game" play because "game" indicates, to me, something fun and relaxing, which "grind for gold/mats" is not) catering to this very market.

COH does not. COH launched in asia and folded within a year.

Also, as an aside, Blizzard themselves mentioned - what, 60% was it? - of their players never got past level 10. I wouldn't call that a good thing.

Auto assault. Tabula Rasa.

Read the criticism of the expectations you set in the first minute and a half. I expect as fair a review from you - from your own presentation, reinforced here on the board - as I would expect of a Democrat's platform from Fox News.

There's something else you don't get about COH, obviously, something brought up time and time again. This isn't "Get to the end game where the game REALLY begins." This is about the journey there. And that's yet another reason why - unlike you - my forum registration date actually reflects how long I've been playing (with about a week's lag.)

Ahh. So we need to be WOW then and have millions of players to be successful?

Did you stop to think that the fact COH has held on for the last - coming close to seven - years is because it ISN'T the typical MMO? There are plenty of "typical" (and atypical) MMOs that just flat out didn't make it - Auto Assault, crash and burn. DDO, death spiral 'til they went F2P. Hellgate: London, crash and burn. Tabula Rasa couldn't even be saved by Garriot's name and a lot of hype. And Aion has had a serious drop as well.

Meanwhile, here's COH, going for years with a pretty steady subscriber base, and successful enough to have NCSoft purchase the property and reinvest, giving the studio new offices and more than quadrupling the staff (from 15 at the end of the time with Cryptic to over 60 now.)

Sounds successful to me.

Know why I don't like the typical MMO? Let's take Aion. I have to basically *stop* playing the game to advance, trying to get gold for skills. I *have* to PVP and/or raid to get the best gear - without which I'm seriously underpowered. Hunts? Yes, we have them in COH - but we know, for instance, when we're told to defeat 30 council, we'll do so by defeating 30 Council, as opposed to "Get 10 bat ears" (which, strangely, only one in twenty bats seem to have.) I'm not forced to team to get from 1-50. I'm not forced to do much of anything. Don't like raiding? I don't have to. Don't like PVP? I can avoid it. Don't want to run task forces? I don't have to. Conversely, I have that available and can run it at any level - and can even go *back* and run it at an appropriate level thanks to Ouroboros's flashback system.

Y'know, the others may complain about suppression (and the TP suppression - really, I know castle said he didn't like it and was going to revisit it, but still) and DR and whatnot, but this right here is the biggest irritant to me because I can't think of a single good reason for it.

I get the "wanting to concentrate fights" behind suppression and whatnot. But seriously - I click a yellow and I'm suppressed? I eat a green?

Yeah, I know others have a bigger impact, but this just ranks up on the "stupid" list for me.

I'm *just that good.*

And twilight fans can be sparkly!

*runs*

Um... stealth is not suppressed in the RWZ. There's 50% debt protection, and there are plenty of high perception mobs or mobs that ignore stealth (Rikti drones, for instance) but stealth is not suppressed.

... not so much luck charms these days. I'm waiting for them to start rising again, but until that happens I'm snagging them at 1-2k and helping kit out lowbies with common Acc IOs and the like.

Side note, if for some reason you don't have the Ouroboros portal/Entrusted with the Secret badge, heroside, by 30 - run his mission. It's easy and awards it.