RemusShepherd

With or without any of the original devs, I'd check out any game with the same setting. It's a fun world.

Twas an honor, knowing and fighting alongside all of you.

Yeah, for most of my time with this game, the Comic Culture forum was my home. I may have had disagreements with many of you -- and by 'you', I mean posters here, posters elsewhere, devs and passersby -- but it was a privilege to be included in your conversations.

The problems with CO are not the game mechanics. The game mechanics are fine, if a little uninspired.

The problem with CO is the attitude. The graphics, all the mission content, and it seems the entire world exists to parody the superhero genre. Almost every mission contains a winking joke about how lame everything is. "Ha, hah, isn't this lame? Everything you accomplish, it's so lame. Isn't it hilarious how lame you are?" It's like playing a pen-and-paper game with an annoying sarcastic hipster as your Game Master. The makers of CO are jaded and resentful of the superhero genre, and it shows.

An occasional joke at the genre's expense is okay. But CO is just overladen with them. If you're not going to take your genre seriously, pick a different one. (Maybe they did, with Star Trek Online. I don't know, I haven't tried it yet. Did they take space opera seriously?)

I have no idea how they thought that attitude was a good idea. It certainly doesn't encourage players. The players that kind of vicious sarcasm *does* attract...well, that's another problem.

I got TSW over the weekend, and let me just say that this game is crazy. Just balls-out insane. From a player initiation that involves oral sex, to puzzles that require you to know Bible verses in Latin, I've never seen anything quite like this game.

It *feels* the most like CoH of all the MMOs I've tried (and I've tried a lot, recently). It has a friendly community with lots of knowledge about the inner workings of the game, good UI options and a world with a deep, rich backstory. NPCs even call you a superhero at times. I'm surprised they got away with a cut scene where a government agent sarcastically refers to you as one of 'the friendly neighborhood Spider-men.'

My only concern with TSW is Funcom. From my experience with Anarchy Online, I know that Funcom has great ideas but they can't code worth a damn. There are a lot of bugs in TSW, and my machine can only run it at lowest graphic options (the same PC that runs GW2 at full graphics). I've had a few lockups and crashes to desktop, as well as a couple in-game bugs. It's horrible programming. But it's got good story, good character system, and a good game. It's almost the exact opposite of GW2, which has excellent technical polish but crappy character advancements and a story that's best ignored.

I may or may not stick with TSW. If it turns my PC into a smoking brick then obviously I'll bail.

By the way, I started one character in each faction. Speaking only about their NPCs and initiation rituals, Illuminati are the 'fun' option, Templars are nice and the best 'good guys', and Dragons are just dicks.

A lot of people are harping on five major points. But I want you to notice something: Four of those points were gambles, and ultimately they might have been gambles that paid off. Those four were:

City of Villains
Going Rogue
Mission Architect
Incarnate System

All four of those had the potential to bring in more players who wanted new kinds of content. They only drove players away when undersupported or mismanaged.

Personally, I liked Going Rogue and thought it was a net positive, but it was tragically abandoned. I cannot say bad things about the Mission Architect -- it was an incredibly ballsy thing for the devs to do, to give players the ability to create their own plot arcs. The AE was unique amongst all MMOs and I guarantee it brought in more players than it drove away. The only flub that I see was in letting players get xp from Artifact missions. It would have been just as fun and easier to balance if the only rewards were tickets and salvage.

I can't fault the devs for being innovative with those systems, and I would not let the take-away lesson be to avoid that kind of innovation. While they were all mismanaged in some way (especially Incarnates, IMHO), these were all brave and creative add-ons to any MMO.

The fifth point, however, was inexcusable and is entirely negative:

Enhancement Diversification

While ED might work hand-in-hand with the IO system, those two changes should never have been released separately. The terrible communication breakdown about ED and GDN were also major crises. ED struck just as the game was most popular, and crippled the momentum that could have built us into a major player in the MMO market.

The lesson learned in CoH is to be innovative, but when you create a new system make sure you have a plan to expand and support it forever. Don't do nerfs without balancing them with positive features, and never, ever, lie about what you are doing.

I regret not getting one of each archetype to 50. I was so close -- I have a level 50 of every archetype except Brute and Kheldian. My highest level brute is 40, and...well, I just hate Kheldians, can't stand them at all.

I also regret complaining so much on these forums. I was hoping my input would make the game better, but I didn't know it was in imminent danger. If I had known its life was so fragile, I would have spent more time highlighting the many good qualities of CoX, or at least kept my mouth shut.

This is great news! It means Muppet Star Wars! With cameos by Wolverine and Aladdin!

My perfect superhero MMO -- Class-less, level-less, and tiered.

Class-less: Players would choose archetypes based on power structure, like in the PnP Hero System. Power structures might be a theme (fire, or psionics, or animal powers) or a power pool limitation (Multipool -- choose 20 powers that you can switch between, with the switch having a 10 minute cooldown. Gadget pool -- choose 100 powers, each of which is one-use per mission. Et cetera.) These are basic powers, such as Energy Bolt (which can be defined as fire or ice or whatever) or Melee attack.

Each character also gets one Specialty. This is what the character is best at. Possible specialties are: Perfect Aim (ranged shots never miss), Devastating Strength (attacks always down the target in one hit), Invulnerability (Immune to normal damage), Perfect Center (immune to knockback, psionics, vertigo and such), Perfect Dodge (cannot be hit by normal attacks). Every Specialty has a counter -- someone with Perfect Aim shooting at a character with Perfect Dodge rolls to hit normally, for example.

Sounds ridiculous, right? Bear with me.

Level-less: The powers a character starts with are the powers they get, period. These are your superpowers. Superpowers, in general, don't change. But you do learn to use them better.

As the character gains experience, they can spend that xp to purchase power tricks. This lets you use your base powers in new ways. A character with a Melee attack might learn a new punch that hits harder or faster. A character with a Fire theme might learn Fire Shield or Fire Bolt. Tricks might allow expanded area effect, longer range, more damage, et cetera. Every theme should have a tree of tricks associated with it. Every pool should expand its options or usability.

Experience also allows you to purchase Contacts -- who give you more missions -- and Belongings such as a base, new costumes, family members, and temp powers. You can also purchase the chance to change tier.

Tiered: The superhero world should have three tiers: Street Hero, World-class Hero, and Cosmic Hero. The Street Hero fights thugs, muggers, and bank robbers. The World-class Hero fights supervillains and regional threats like giant monsters. The Cosmic Hero fights entire alien armies and things like Doomsday or Thanos. (Entities like Galacticus and Parallax are on a fourth tier that players can't get to.)

If you fight something from out of your tier, the higher-tier combatant gets the equivalent of all the Specialties; they are Invulnerable, have perfect aim, kill in one shot, etc. Sometimes a Street hero must face a giant monster, or a World-class hero must fight Thanos. That's where plot arcs lead, and where they climax.

Characters can purchase temporary tier shifts that bring them to another tier. A Street hero might get special training or gadgets allowing them into the World-class action, or a World-class hero might find cosmic power. A Cosmic hero might allow himself to be depowered to fight on a lower level. ("I'm not allowing someone with the power of a sun to wander around Brooklyn.") You'd have to purchase tier shifts to finish some plot arcs, or to team with friends on different tiers.

There should be raid-style content in each tier that affects the raid content in other tiers. Street heros need to stop the plutonium heist, to give World-class heroes more time when fighting Dr. Pluto, which opens up holes in the shield of the Plutonic Planet-eater that is heading towards Earth.

That's a rough outline. I think it would be a good system that gives players broad customization, Belongings to collect, a resource sink in tier shifting, and some interesting potential plot arcs and gameplay challenges.

But, you know, it's just a pipe dream. Pipe dreams are fun, I guess.

I believe the reason City of Heroes attracts us players more than other superhero MMOs is that the CoH developers decided to appeal to the Bartle Explorer type.

Robert Bartle was a sociologist who categorized MMO players in four types: Achiever, Socializer, Killer, and Explorer. The Explorer is the rarest and the hardest to keep in a game, because they want to explore terrain, game mechanics, and storyline content. That's exactly what CoH gave us: Zones to explore (with badges to prove we were there!), complex game mechanics, and a deep, engrossing storyline.

The other MMOs are focused more on Achievers. (The Marvel MMO appears to be mostly for Killers.) They all feature acquisition of loot as a driving goal, simplified game mechanics, and second-rate story cribbed from known, static properties. There's a little bit for Explorers, but not much.

Explorers were the lifeblood of CoH. They were probably also its downfall, as the Korean market is dominated by Killer/Achiever types, and that is probably what NCSoft has decided to focus upon.

I'm optimistic that some developer will try again to make a MMO targeted to Explorers. It might not be superhero based, but it's a niche in the market that someone needs to fill.

I tried CO but it just didn't click with me. Got one character to level 15 and another to level 10, but I'm not liking the customization options and the gameplay.

I might be playing GW2, although that isn't scratching my itch either. Until another game comes on the scene that pulls me in (Wildstar?) I don't think I'll be playing MMOs. Eh, I'm getting too old for them anyway.

Life goes in cycles and fads. I'm convinced that the 'free to play' MMO style will be a fad, and someday popular games will cycle around to other ways of paying the bills.

The next big fad might be in-game advertising, or megacorporation sponsorship, or crowd-sourced creative commons development, or something entirely new. It's possible that the subscription-based game might come back. (It still works in EVE and Second Life; future games might emulate those in order to follow their model.)

I don't know what the next step in the cycle will be. But F2P is just one step of the evolution of multiplayer games, and in ten years or so the industry will cycle around to something new or a remake of the old ways. That's how it always works with human beings and the things they build.

I was waiting for someone to remember that this wasn't just a City of Heroes -- it was also a City of Villains. Villains wouldn't take this laying down.

Personally, though, I'm a hero. I'll mourn, then go play another game.

It should be noted that as of the last patch in GW2, there are Korean characters in the text description for items on the American servers.

I don't think NCSoft cares much about American gamers *at all*.