I didn't appreciate CoX's innovations until ...
By
AlexEss,
Posted on: 2007-12-26 09:19 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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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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Ah, yes, yes, got yer point.
But indeed, the Sidekick system is still very unique, the only thing remotely similar to it that I've ever seen is FFXI system, where your level doesn't matter as much as the level of your class, so if a friend just joined the game, you can change your class and start with him from lvl1; still, not really the same.
InfamousBrad, you've hit several nails square on the head.
I have some friends expressing interest in Tabula Rasa, and I'm already wincing, thinking about the lack of sidekick/exemplar system.
www.paragonwiki.com is a great source of information for this game.
New or returning to the game? Want advice from experienced players who want to help YOU?
The Mentor Project: Part of the New Player Council.
Let me tell you, the levels of mobs and trying to team in TR is retarded. You outlevel some content, and then there are huge gaps where you have no content, because you leveled too damn fast, and didn't squeeze enough missions in.
This is before I even get to broken powers/classes/missions/instances, etc. I'll check it out again in a few months.. but seriously, that's all unneccessary Bullsht that doesn't need to be in a game anymore.
On the Age of Conan forums, I remember people would constantly complain about something being in or not in the game, and others saying that it's impossible to make an MMO any other way. I would often think, what the heck are they talking about? COH already solved this problem a long time ago.
It's piss poor to see new MMO's come out that haven't learned the lessons that this game was built on.
PS: If you are street sweeping too much in TR, check out motor assist tier 4. Once I started using that, I was leveling about 2x as fast, due to saved travel time, and not having to engage mobs pointlessly.
Very nice post, Brad. Thanks a ton!
I've played a ton of MMOs. I've yet to play one I couldn't take some ideas from. I think you short change the concept of street sweeping in other games a bit -- if all you do is instance missions, an MMO can begin to feel awfully empty and lonely! I like seeing other player wander by doing whatever it is they are doing while I'm gathering the whatsits for my collection quest. I even like competing for resource nodes despite the fact that it often makes me want to slap my fellow players. I definitely get where you are coming from; but I do think there is room for this style of play.
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Ghost Widow's tower is about 5 feet wide on the outside....
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.
[/ QUOTE ]You complain about the exterior dimensions of GW's Tower and not those of TV?
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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But now that I realize just how far the entire rest of the industry lags behind City of Heroes and especially behind City of Villains in overall level of innovation and customer service, I realize just how well and thoroughly spoiled I am. Thank you!
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This post is teh win.
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Very nice post, Brad. Thanks a ton!
I've played a ton of MMOs. I've yet to play one I couldn't take some ideas from. I think you short change the concept of street sweeping in other games a bit -- if all you do is instance missions, an MMO can begin to feel awfully empty and lonely! I like seeing other player wander by doing whatever it is they are doing while I'm gathering the whatsits for my collection quest. I even like competing for resource nodes despite the fact that it often makes me want to slap my fellow players. I definitely get where you are coming from; but I do think there is room for this style of play.
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QFE, QFT. I love City of Heroes, but I play other MMOs often times for all the ways they AREN'T like CoX.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Very nice post, Brad. Thanks a ton!
I've played a ton of MMOs. I've yet to play one I couldn't take some ideas from. I think you short change the concept of street sweeping in other games a bit -- if all you do is instance missions, an MMO can begin to feel awfully empty and lonely! I like seeing other player wander by doing whatever it is they are doing while I'm gathering the whatsits for my collection quest. I even like competing for resource nodes despite the fact that it often makes me want to slap my fellow players. I definitely get where you are coming from; but I do think there is room for this style of play.
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Nothing wrong with street sweeping. I don't like the idea of having to spawn camp for loot, and it's one reason I never played EQ despite being a huge MUD player and a prime candidate.
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... KER SNIP ...
Only recently did I get it hammered into my head that almost every other MMO in the history of the genre considers the street sweeping your way a half a mile to a mile across the map, being forced to fight every spawn between point A and point B, to be the most important content in the game, to be an essential part of the MMO formula. That, I'm finally given to understand, and not the technical obstacles in 3D travel, is why other games are so resistant to flight. And I cannot thank you enough for having the courage to bet that you could continue to raise the development budget to replace all those endless hours of street sweeping with enough instanced missions to keep us playing for the same number of hours. No, really, no amount of thanks I could give you would be enough. Thanks!
... KER SNIP ...
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11 minutes to fly from Auberdine to Theramore.
Nuff said.
Scrappers are just like chainsaws. Somewhat hard to handle, EXTREMELY dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane.
@Alissara - an Angry Angel
The Angry Angels. When it absolutely positively has to be spanked today.
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Very nice post, Brad. Thanks a ton!
I've played a ton of MMOs. I've yet to play one I couldn't take some ideas from. I think you short change the concept of street sweeping in other games a bit -- if all you do is instance missions, an MMO can begin to feel awfully empty and lonely! I like seeing other player wander by doing whatever it is they are doing while I'm gathering the whatsits for my collection quest. I even like competing for resource nodes despite the fact that it often makes me want to slap my fellow players. I definitely get where you are coming from; but I do think there is room for this style of play.
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I'm less familiar with street sweeping-like activities in other MMOs, but street sweeping in CoH is a bit borked. The street sweeping expert teams knew that there were "good" places to do it, and bad places to do it. Certain loops in Bricks were good. Most places in Steel were not so good. Some places in Sky were good. Some places in Sky sucked. The docks in PI were good. The Portal loops were good. The middle of the zone was bad.
There are just a lot of weird oddities that are either long standing bugs, odd design, or artifacts of a game that didn't always have a purple patch. Like the level 15 LT in the middle of the level 11 minions in Steel. What sort of team is supposed to street sweep that? Or the blocks in Kings that have level 6 spawns around the corner from level 11 spawns. Realistically, the streets of Paragon City aren't "smooth" when it comes to critter levels, and that means it doesn't pay to be "adventurous." Knowledgeable players know how and where to street sweep. Its actually almost dumb for anyone else to do it, because you're either going to be fighting a lot of greys while moving around, or running into deep purples when you turn the corner.
I've never been on a street-sweeping team, ever, with more than three players that did not have a leader that knew *exactly*, *precisely* where they were going, and exactly, precisely what spawns we'd run into on every single lap, by heart. Not even back in mid '04.
Instanced missions used to suck because the rewards for doing them were pathetic (says the player who mostly soloed instanced missions from level 1 to 30+ on an energy blaster in the old days) but you always get a map full of level-appropriate targets. Once the instanced mission rewards were fixed, players switched from street sweeping to instanced mission running in almost a blink of the eye. If the streets had better level distributions, I think you'd find more street sweeping teams than you currently do now. As it stands, I'm guessing that street sweeping is uncommon outside of the sewers, Bricks, and a few other limited places.
I would love to fight every spawn between me and my next mission. 99% of the time, that's either impossible, suicidal, pointless. I think its a clash of two incompatible design goals that sounded good on paper, but ... actually, they don't even sound good on paper if you write them on the same piece of paper. I think the original design goal was to have the street spawns be something to do between instanced missions (for those that wanted to do them), and I thik it was an original design goal to intermix the different levels of players, so low levels would see high levels and vice-versa (why else keep sending level 30s back to Kings Row over and over and over and over and over and over again). But you can't have both with the current combat system: if a level 30 is going to be sent into a level 12 area, there's not going to be anything for him to do in it. Heck, just sending a 12 from the green part of the zone to the red part of the same zone will leave them with nothing to do on the streets.
If you want level Xs to have something to do on the street, you have to keep them in the level X part of town. Conversely, if you want level Xs and level X+20s to be seeing each other, they will have to be doing that in a part of town that's going to be either dangerous or boring for at least one of them: there's no such thing as neutral ground for players of widely disparate levels. This seems to be one area where the game attempted to do two good but incompatible things, and ended up not quite achieving either.
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You touched on some doozies.
Flight is what hooked me on the game, no doubt. I still remember how in late beta, I ran my elec/elec blaster up to 14 as fast as I could - and then stopped levelling basically completely, because who could avoid just flying EVERYWHERE? I literally just flew around for hours and hours.
SKing and Exemping is what kept me in the game. Without it, I'd be gone, and it's why I consistently urge the devs to put the experience of playing with friends of any level ahead of nits in mechanics that would hurt the process. (It's why I've never liked set bonus killoff for exemplars, for example; we should be glad people want to exemp and play with friends, not punish them)
Anyhow, nice post.
I've always thought people street sweeped because they wanted something they couldn't get in an instanced mission. The old problem with instances was travel time. You wasted eons getting from zone to zone, going back to contacts, etc. Having a large team is already herding of the hard kind.
The other was people who can handle it often like big challenges. I quite enjoy hammering 8 man spawns solo or with a small team. I'm sad the difficulty slider has not yet evolved so that I can take 2-3 SGmates and fight 6 or 8 man spawns. The chaos of CoH - the immersion of having a wave of enemies vs you and your superpowers - is irresistable, but having to get 6+ together to feel it shouldn't be mandatory, imo.
Flight is why I bought the game in the first place.
"Wait.. I can.. fly? Freely? Wherever I want? As high as the ceiling cap?"
*plunks down $50*
"Screw FFXI"
Excellent post, OP, and I agree with everything you stated. This game broke many walls that other games continue to run into. The sk system being my favorite part of it.
I've tried just about ever major MMO ever released. And a lot of the smaller ones my friends make fun of me for trying as well. While I still play some of them (WoW and GW), they remain part time fancies. Since the day I bought it and until the day they bring down the servers, I'll be right here maxing my 50's and rolling new characters.
"His Imperial Majesty's Minister of Restraints and Leather" -LHF
Two naughty acronym teams / Ascension / Convenient / Artic and the Chillz / Fap / Other teams I can't remember (sorry.. mind is goin')
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You complain about the exterior dimensions of GW's Tower and not those of TV?
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Only because I forgot 
It feels like Terra Volta is bigger on the inside than the whole of Independence Port sometimes. And even if it's not, its definitely wider. That little, pathetic square at the end of Valour Bridge is a caricature.
It's just that, more often than not, I just do my best not to look at it when I'm passing by. The inside is big enough and at least follows the same pattern. Ghost Widow's tower has enormous spans of horizontal ground and Lord knows how much empty blackness (always wondered why Arachnos waste space like this), all somehow contained inside a tower that's as big around as an Arachnos Flier. Where did they find room to fit so much void in that confined space, I'll never know.
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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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This is my First and Only MMO. I am SO glad I didn't start with one of those - might have left and never come back! Thanks for summarizing this. I hope some magazine picks it up and publishes it somewhere.
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Ditto. I've been playing games since I was a weee boy. Started on the 2600 and never looked back. I have been a console gamer all the way. When My buddies hooked me into this, that was pretty much it. I only play this game now. This one, no other. Playstation 2 finally busted: whatever, who cares.
I had never played an MMO before this and everything I here from other people about the communities and the people and the game mechanics make we want to not try them all. Besides I'm too much of a comic geek to bother.
So, right on to Brad, everyone who posted similar sentiments, and the whole thread in general. This needed to be said and should be more often. Thanks to the whole CoX team!! King's to you. You've made the best game i've ever played!
-Doc
Actual Location: Inside the system itself.
"When the most exciting thing about Mace is AceMace's avatar, then it's time to get realistic."
Shield Guide
The only thing anyone in this game is "supposed to be doing" is having fun. Everything else is negotiable. -Jet Boy
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think you short change the concept of street sweeping in other games a bit -- if all you do is instance missions, an MMO can begin to feel awfully empty and lonely!
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I don't know about other MMOs, but I have to say you guys have made one where this isn't the case. Me, I solo almost exclusively. I hate people and people seem to hate me. Demanding playstyle, you see. And yet over half the time when I play, I'm always chatting with someone who's often playing on an entirely different server altogether. I remember it said that one doesn't have to TEAM with people to INTERACT with them, and with the beauty that is global chat, I agree!
Of course, one can never discount the value of physically (or as close as it gets) meeting other people in the street as you go about your business. Sometimes you team up, sometimes you just exchange exasperated exclamations, and sometimes you just keep on walking. Actually, from my own perspective, you keep on walking every time. Most of the time when I end up next to other people through the things I do, I'd stop and have a look at their costume. I collect ideas from the game. They'd turn to look at me, activate their travel power and move on.
I see the pull of SEEING other people in the game without necessarily having to invite them, yourself, but I gotta' say, seeing them is about as far as it goes. And, frankly, if that's the extent of the random interaction, I may as well be passing by NPCs for all it matters.
I remember it said that in a drive to eliminate griefing in the game, any unnecessary interaction between players was straight-up eliminated. You ended up with a game where you don't HAVE to interact with other people unless you need them. And most people don't. There's no shouting to get off your camping spot, asking for help goes to specific channels and persona banter between stays personal.
I've met other people in this game, and met them a'plenty. Never through just meeting them in the street, though, not unless I meet them 10 times in the same day. Almost always it's been by either being invited to their teams or by inviting them to my teams, both of which happen over the team search function. I can't remember the last time I even spoke to a random stranger outside of the occasional awkward "hi" following by the other guy leaving while I'm typing up a response (hate responding with just "hi"). I'm not sure why that is, but if I had to guess, I'd say that for most people it takes a lot to flip the switch into "OK, now this is social interaction!" For me, it's all the same setting, but I've seen a lot of people that you have to confront in some way before they'll even talk to you. Then it turns out they're fun, talkative, intelligent people, but ye gads you can't get two words out of them when you meet them in the street.
Casual observation.
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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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I'd just like to chime in with my two cents saying that Global Chat handles and channels are without a doubt the best thing I can think of, and I don't know how any other game can exist without that system and the developers not feel ashamed of themselves. It is inconceivable that any new mmo would NOT have this sort of system, and if anyone is making such a beast now they deserve to be shot.
Great read. Well done, and helps sum up a lot of the reasons I love City of Heroes.
And I'll heap more praise on the Sidekick/Exemplar system. Its perfect for casual players (like me), is excellent for the community, and is unique.
On top of that, I love the fact that the devs managed to add in both crafting and economic systems that are fun, don't require high amounts grinding to work up a skill, and are completely optional. Same with PVP. Same with a lot of things, really. Pretty much everything outside the core game adds to the game as opposed to being "required." The depth is there for whoever wants it, when they want it.
There are a lot of things in COH that tells me that by design the game is more considerate of my time than other games I've played. That's a good thing
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I've played a ton of MMOs. I've yet to play one I couldn't take some ideas from. I think you short change the concept of street sweeping in other games a bit -- if all you do is instance missions, an MMO can begin to feel awfully empty and lonely! I like seeing other player wander by doing whatever it is they are doing while I'm gathering the whatsits for my collection quest. I even like competing for resource nodes despite the fact that it often makes me want to slap my fellow players. I definitely get where you are coming from; but I do think there is room for this style of play.
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NOW I understand what that's all about....
Outcast Chopper: Sheesh, capes are quiet tonight. Let's see if they got any new axes at the PWN Shop.
Outcast Slugger: All righty... wait. Hang on a sec.
OC: You just took a leak. "Gotta go gotta go, gotta go right n--"
OS: No, man. I'm seeing an Aluminium Vein on my map. It's... it's in that bustop over there.
OC: OK, get to mining. I'll watch yer back.
I could never play another MMO, I've tried WoW and EQ, and FFXI, and other less mentionables. and they all suck compared to COX!
Also LOL
Edited for loliness
Do you mean, "they all suck CoX"? 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
No, they don't use enough ports.
Also catfish bannana pie cheese
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Ghost Widow's tower has enormous spans of horizontal ground and Lord knows how much empty blackness (always wondered why Arachnos waste space like this), all somehow contained inside a tower that's as big around as an Arachnos Flier. Where did they find room to fit so much void in that confined space, I'll never know.
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If it seemed architecturally normal and not at all influenced by or demonstrative of weirdly supernatural tendencies of Ghosty and her ilk, I for one would have been very disappointed. It's kind of like how I'd be disappointed in Nemesis if he didn't make his interdimensional portals and near-flawless replicants with STEAM technology. How he accomplished this, we will certainly never know...but that is much less important than the flavor of the thing, right?
<QR>
Can't say I've read every thread here, but I wanted to highlight a theme that relate to several of your points: COX is great for a casual player like me who generally has only 5-10 hours/week to play.
There's enough depth to the game to keep me entertained. But it's simple enough, and the mishs are structured, so that I can play 1-3 mish/night and feel like I've accomplished something.
Most importantly though is COX's exemplaring/sidekicking function because it encourages the activity that I find the most fun in a MMO: teaming. This ability has made teaming utterly transparent, whether in a PUG with folks I've met for the first time (looking for someone to fill in that last slot) or in a team filled with SGmates who just want to hang out for the night with characters on various levels.
Simple. Easy. Just what I need to keep me coming back.
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Ghost Widow's tower is about 5 feet wide on the outside.
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Didn't you know that Recluse struck a deal with the Time Lords before constructing it?