I didn't appreciate CoX's innovations until ...
By
AlexEss,
Posted on: 2007-12-26 09:19 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I must agree with everything that has been thus far expounded in this thread. CoH/CoV is the first and honestly only MMO that I ever have or will subscribe to. I also played WoW (10 day free trial...at a friends insistance) and agree totally that grinding is annoying, inane, and boring, most MMOs do not have instanced missions, and (sorry for this) LoL at waiting till 40 for increased movement speed and not being able to attack while in said boosted movement mode.
And I will be the first to say that CoH/V has flaws, but the devs openly acnowledge these and work to fix them, plus they have a great habit of taking reasonable and worthwhile player suggestions from the forum and using them.
And to those who say that WoW is better than CoH/V...we could care less, we have a great playerbase, if not in numbers then in spirit, and if Cryptic had posessed (near) limitless cash during development like Blizzard (multiple smash titles) had, then CoH/V would be even better.
I for one will subscribe until either the game goes under, upgrades (in which case I will subscribe to the upgrade), or I die..in which case I hope that my own personal heaven has a good compy, fast connection to the servers, and the latest patched version of the games.
"You, dear sir, are a legend. "- nelly. "PIE DOESN'T HAVE TENTACLES!"
Bladewing Draconian lvl 30 KAT/SR scrapper
DarkNinjutsu lvl 50 DM/REG scrapper
Dajoji Hino lvl 50 elm/ela scrapper
Bloody Byakko lvl 20 claws/sr scrapper
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Didn't EQ2's exemplar come after the game came out? It is nice that other MMO's are copying some stuff from CoH finally (meant that in a nice way)
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As I recall I seem to recall that WoW 'borrowed' the Team Seek feature several months after CoX was released. I've not played the game but from what I was told there are these crystal things all over the WoW world where you can search for people looking for a team and then teleport to their location or something.
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Didn't EQ2's exemplar come after the game came out? It is nice that other MMO's are copying some stuff from CoH finally (meant that in a nice way)
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As I recall I seem to recall that WoW 'borrowed' the Team Seek feature several months after CoX was released. I've not played the game but from what I was told there are these crystal things all over the WoW world where you can search for people looking for a team and then teleport to their location or something.
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WoW's LFG tool is a bit more cumbersome and restricting than CoX's.
Where in CoH you can add limits or have none at all, WoW's LFG tool has level limits built into it.
So anyone above the level to do something, can't put themselves as looking for a group to do that thing.
And you can't just put yourself up as "Looking for instance groups" like you can here. Its very specific, and as I said, limiting.
Also, the /sea(or /who in WoW) and LFG tool are seperate.
EQ2's "exemplar/Sk" system did come out a while after release. It wasn't there when I played at release and for a couple months.
"Through Avarice evil smiles; through insanity it sings"
Forum Troll Rule #1: Anyone who disagrees with my point of view is either a fanboy or an idiot.
I'm a proud carebear.
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As I recall I seem to recall that WoW 'borrowed' the Team Seek feature several months after CoX was released. I've not played the game but from what I was told there are these crystal things all over the WoW world where you can search for people looking for a team and then teleport to their location or something.
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If I remember right it was even worse than that. They installed "Meeting Stones" near the game's dungeons. Players would have to travel to the area, click on the stone, and then wait for the server to compose a team from the participants available (effectively, a lottery). Unless I'm mistaken, the process wasn't instantaneous nor guaranteed, and if there was teleportation it was only available from a few locations (like the capital cities).
Basically, quite a convoluted way of joining a pick-up group, though I suppose it was still better than desperately spamming the LFG chat channel. For added irony, some of the "Meeting Stones" were located in places that were pretty dicey to visit if you weren't already in a team.
All in all, I'd say it's a fairly great example of how innovation isn't really one of Blizzard's strengths. Why on earth they didn't just emulate/refine a more practical, existing solution is beyond me. Hopefully it's improved considerably since I played.
Meeting stones were replaced by the LFG tool.
The stones are now used to teleport people to the stone(usually near the instance portal).
Need 2 people to do the summoning. One person selects a teammate, clicks the stone, the second person clicks the portal that spawns and a "Your teammates are trying to port you, you have 2 min to respond. [Accept] [Not now]" window appears on the teammate being ported.
While its annoying that you have to have two people to summon, the person being summoned doesn't have to be anywhere near the zone the instance is in.
So, you could basically summon from like the Shadow Shard to Atlas Park.
However, like the LFG tool, the stones are also limited by level. You can't summon someone thats too high or low of a level for the instance.
Its taken about... well, I can't remember when the tool was introduced, but people are just barely getting the hang of it. Its not even that hard to understand, its just not straight forward.
You end up missing travel powers and Recall Friend when all of you are too low for mounts, but the instance is in the middle of freaking nowhere.
"Through Avarice evil smiles; through insanity it sings"
Forum Troll Rule #1: Anyone who disagrees with my point of view is either a fanboy or an idiot.
I'm a proud carebear.
Globals!
Honestly, I don't think I could ever play an MMO without globals. The ability to Gfriend people is just awesome. I hated trying to play WoW with my buddies, as it was virtually impossible to keep track. You HAD to all play on the same server, and you HAD to all be in the same Guild. It blew [censored].
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I wonder if WoW's meeting stone mechanism (I vaguely remember that from the 14 day trial I tried) was intended to make it easier for people that speak different languages to group.
Seems almost custom made for that, and given Blizzard's success in other games as far as their other games, it might have been the "plan".
Then again, they could have just implemented a poorly thought-out idea.
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Speaking of Flight and other travel powers, how many other of the older single-planet-based games allow 100% access to all areas of the board? One thing that annoyed me about Guild Wars and some other MMOs is that you have to stay on invisible paths even though you can see scenery in the distance and no obvious barrier to block your path! Heck, being able to jump an obstacle and keep moving is pretty awesome 
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Good point, I never really thought of it like that before.
I guess that's why the single player games I really enjoyed before discovering CoX were the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. They don't limit you to certain areas, if you can see it you can eventually reach it.
Devs would post more if they could say "hi!" without people whining because they wanted them to say "hello".
-Nethergoat
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Speaking of Flight and other travel powers, how many other of the older single-planet-based games allow 100% access to all areas of the board? One thing that annoyed me about Guild Wars and some other MMOs is that you have to stay on invisible paths even though you can see scenery in the distance and no obvious barrier to block your path! Heck, being able to jump an obstacle and keep moving is pretty awesome
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Good point, I never really thought of it like that before.
I guess that's why the single player games I really enjoyed before discovering CoX were the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. They don't limit you to certain areas, if you can see it you can eventually reach it.
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This is a BIG limitation in Tabula Rasa too. You are only able to walk on certain paths, and they don't show up well or at all on your map. There are a LOT of blind pathways in the mountains, and it is really frustrating to need to be about 10 feet from where you are and not be able to jump over a small rock and get there.
Once you have flown in CoH, it's almost impossible to tolerate the invisible wall limitation of other MMOs.
Ideally, the tank will die precisely as everyone else starts fighting, allowing aggro to be spread evenly among the blaster. -seebs, "How to Suck at CoH/CoV" Guide
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Sidekick/Mentoring. The ability for two or more friends to play together no matter their level should be one of the top, if not the top, goals for any MMOG developers. This is my favorite innovation, among many very strong innovations, put forth by CoH.
I'd like to add one to this thread, one that was mentioned in a short aside earlier. Think of the OPTIONS that CoX has given its players!
We have the ultimate in appearance options. And then in addition we have up to five costume slots!
Want to street sweep and not do instances? Feel free. In fact you can do that with smaller groups of foes in a regular zone or with larger groups of foes in a hazard zone. Options.
Want to do instances? You can do radio missions that will take you to somewhere in your current zone, and have no arc. Or you can do contact missions that will take you around the city, and could have an arc that contains many missions, and sometimes temporary powers. Options.
Don't want to do a mission, skip it, you have that option (once a week). Don't want to do a bank mission, tell the contact you don't want to.
Don't want to take a travel power? Sounds good. You'll be fine. It's an option.
I'm sure I could come up with more, but for me options are what really sum up the CoX experience.
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True, true. However, I do find I prefer EQ2's variant. ... I don't particularly like mentoring in Co* because I lose access to abilities and I don't believe I gain any exp. I don't mind doing it for a specific mission or something, but certainly not the days-on-end fun that I've had mentoring guildmates in EQ2.
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I agree with this. I recall a post of some one (a dev) in EQ2 saying they leveled all the way to the level cap at the time (I believe 50) under Mentor mode, but that it was horribly painful, something no one would even attempt if they were sane (and i dare bet it was handled as a simulator of sorts.)
Another thing i like of EQ2's mentoring system over CoX is that one player can have multiple mentors, so if you have a group of friends that all play different times and therefore all end up leveling at different speeds, they still can all just mentor the lowest level and play at his level. In CoX, if you want an 8 man team, you are forced for 4 of them to be within the right level range while the rest sk/exemplar. With EQ2's system, you can have everyone at different level ranges.
Beautifully written post. And it serves a dual-purpose. Not only to voice your gratitude, but to pass the same revelations you've had onto other players. I don't think I've ever disliked any aspects of this game enough to think poorly of it. I have my complaints (mostly defense, Stalkers and Brutes), but it's still refreshing to have someone point out other goods that I may have been taking for granted.
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The only thing the poster left out about CoH/CoV is that the powers you get as you level are game changing as opposed to other games where the skills/attributes you get a enhancements.
This applies to both MMOs and solitare type games. Getting a bonus to damage to your sword or spell is nice but since mobs just get more HPs after 10 levels of that is isn't as exciting as all that. Same goes for more armor, etc.
In CoH when you get a new power you usually get some crazy new animation and the power usually has multiple effects you can often use in different ways. So you not only have more power but you LOOK different using it and may start playing the entire game slightly differently.
Powers like Ice Slick or Tier 9 powers can change the game a LOT. Example Dom/Controllers: 32 levels into the game and suddenly you have a powerful pet(s) and can play very differently. Yeah I'll take that over 5 more pts damage to all attacks any day. 
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one of things i don't think anyone mentioned is powers, how many other MMO's you have multiple versions of what is essentually the same exact power, but scaled up for level, ya my primary may only have 9 powers in it, but it beats worrying about getting flares 1, flares 2, flares 3 and so on
I got guild wars for x-mas as a side game, its quest system is deifinitely less friendly than CoX's, and i definitely miss having vertical movement
You forgot the godly customization, in almost every other MMO out there chances are you'll look at least 97% exactly like everyone else from your level, class and race (if this does apply).
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You forgot the godly customization, in almost every other MMO out there chances are you'll look at least 97% exactly like everyone else from your level, class and race (if this does apply).
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I didn't forget about it. It may not be the default, it may not be the norm? But this game is not even vaguely the first, or the only, MMO to offer it. As I said earlier in the thread, I ought to know; I was a master tailor in Star Wars: Galaxies (pre-NGE), and had a thriving side business selling good quality cloth to a master armorsmith on the same moon. Puzzle Pirates gives you fairly broad control over your character's appearance, too, if not anywhere near to the extent that this one does.
So trust me, I'm not knocking the costume creator in this game, I praise it every day, I think it would be easier to recruit people into this game if they would re-release (in English) that stand-alone costume creator that they gave out as a demo for the Korean version City of Hero. But what I wanted to call attention to, a week ago, were the things that City of Heroes/Villains got right that nobody else gets right. Amazingly, not even other games from the same corporation share those technologies. Why not? "Because that's how all other MMOs are."
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You forgot the godly customization, in almost every other MMO out there chances are you'll look at least 97% exactly like everyone else from your level, class and race (if this does apply).
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And the amount of detail that goes into that customization, both from the sheer number of different costume pieces and the variations on them down to the attention to tiny details -- how many of you have noticed that virtually every different boot piece has a different design for the sole of the boot, for example? The amount of artwork design that has to go into coming up with different shoe soles, from classic lugged boot soles to different track-shoe-like soles, is amazing... and for a part of your costume that you won't see for any protracted period of time unless your character has Flight.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
I can't think for reasons why he would argue this, but a friend of mine who got me hooked on CoH before leaving for WoW like a year or so later...complained about players having all the same powers and what have you at lv50, but he still loves the character creator system in CoH. At the same time, I told him, "Well...WoW is pretty much the same thing, sure you have lots of different armors, but if you want the the nice stuff, eventually everyone will look the same, and yeah you have a lot more powers to pick from, but again, if you're going for certain things, you'll have the same powers as a lot of others in your class.
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I can't think for reasons why he would argue this, but a friend of mine who got me hooked on CoH before leaving for WoW like a year or so later...complained about players having all the same powers and what have you at lv50, but he still loves the character creator system in CoH. At the same time, I told him, "Well...WoW is pretty much the same thing, sure you have lots of different armors, but if you want the the nice stuff, eventually everyone will look the same, and yeah you have a lot more powers to pick from, but again, if you're going for certain things, you'll have the same powers as a lot of others in your class.
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The difference being that theres always an upgrade, always that carrot to strive for. After a few months, Blizz introduces a new dungeon or a new boss or simply new drops.
What do you get once your character is 50 that changes everything? IOs. Once you get all the IOs you need, what do you get? IOs are that carrot, but theres nothing beyond it once you max your character.
"Through Avarice evil smiles; through insanity it sings"
Forum Troll Rule #1: Anyone who disagrees with my point of view is either a fanboy or an idiot.
I'm a proud carebear.
but wouldn't it still produce the same end result? that of x amount of people lookin the same/havin the same stuff
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but wouldn't it still produce the same end result? that of x amount of people lookin the same/havin the same stuff
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Thats generally not what keeps people playing MMOs, though.
What keeps 9 million people coughing up 15 bucks a month for a cartoony fantasy world that makes fun of itself and its players every single day is the carrot on a stick.
The best part of the carrot is that you don't get punished as severely for trying to get it as you do in other MMOs.
So, while you have the same armor and abilities as every other Warrior, it doesn't matter because you'll always have something new to strive for. Thus, you don't think about it.
In CoX, you don't have that constant struggle for the new piece of armor. So, you end up paying more attention to powers and appearances.
"Through Avarice evil smiles; through insanity it sings"
Forum Troll Rule #1: Anyone who disagrees with my point of view is either a fanboy or an idiot.
I'm a proud carebear.
::notes::
Found another one.
Size Matters: In City of Heroes, they don't call a six-block (or so) area a "continent."
Do I need to say more?
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Size Matters: In City of Heroes, they don't call a six-block (or so) area a "continent."
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Well, no, but they call a half mile by half mile area an island and a 10 feet by 10 feet building a skyscraper
There is a very real fact that the pure size of most everything in City of Heroes is deceptively small. You couldn't really tell, in fact, CoH-side. It's only CoV-side where everything is crammed together that you feel how small the zones really are. An island supposedly out there in the ocean is less than a mile away from the archipelago it's supposed to be away from. The supposed superpit is no more than a quarter mile across and Ghost Widow's tower is about 5 feet wide on the outside.
The scale of the game is massive, but sometimes the size is smaller than you think. Massive high-rise buildings have the footprint of a medium size house, island towns are small enough to walk across with the span of five minutes, towering factories and their courtyards are actually pretty dang compact when you look at the plot size. Just about the only truly big places are hazard zones in City of Heroes. Take Terra Volta, for example. Yes, it's barren, but it's an entire zone devoted to an industrial complex. This thing is beyond massive, beyond diverse. The nuclear power station itself is absolutely colossal, with chimneys with a footprint as large as Recluse's tower in Grandville and shooting up about as high (above the flight ceiling, in fact). Or look at Eden, where you have a massive jungle that's swallowed up entire buildings and a stone spire that's as big at the base as some of the smaller zones and goes up so far above the flight cap you can't even see it.
We have massive. It's just in zones that are designed around it. Most zones are crammed with a lot of smaller things to look at.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Hrm... good call on those zones, especially Terra Volta. Would be nice if Villains had some good zones like that....
Just to build on Arcanaville's comments about attribute points, I've managed to pull up the Jack Emmert diaries where he goes through how the Archetype system was eventually decided upon:
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/434/434111p1.html
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/438/438130p1.html
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/454/454417p1.html
It's after reading things like this that I see how much thought went into breaking the mold and taking the risk to not do things in the traditional way. In many respects, I think CoH/V appealed the most to first-time MMO players rather than those raised on EQ, UO et al. To established MMO players, CoH was a simple MMO that was fun but also 'easy-mode'; to first time MMO players, CoH was a very easy step between single player games and MMO games that was also very fun.
As with the rest of you, I see that CoH/V has it's flaws - for a game that has developed alts into an end-game, it is still particularly unfriendly in a number of areas for players who repeat content, for instance - but it is still the only MMO I've felt is worth paying the sub fee.