So close to the eve of Champions..

[or the alternatively titled: "Who wants an all-Warshade VG? thread ]

...and all I can think about is Going Rogue. Specifically:

- come what may, which if my existing characters will remain villains/remain heroes
- of those who switch, how will they react to their new homes in the City/Isles.. is Exotica doomed to live in a halfway house run by the Flanders?
- which of my characters am I willing to reroll so as to be birthed in the new GR starting zones.. there are new starting zone(s), yes?
- will we have a grace period in which we are neither villain nor hero? And if so, will that mean I can't join my existing SGs or VGs? Will we have to make a new lair? Can we just move into one of the old MTV Real World houses or get the crappy Road Rules camper?
- will Nick's Weenie Stand go under if I stop eating there?
- do I get to keep my cool Arachnos brand uniforms or are they confiscated? Damn, I love my waistcapes sooo so very much.

My corrupter just spent 21 days washing the windshields of Arachnos flyers with her tee-shirt so she could get her darn Pilot's badge. I can't even imagine what kind of shenanigans will be expected of her in Atlas. How will your characters deal with GR?

One would think you keep the uniform's original markings and brands, or at least get access to a 'vandalised' or defaced version of the symbols.

Going Rogue is horrible and cruel. RPwise I love what it opens. I will be able to bring the Stalker and Brute versions over to blueside while shifting the blaster version of another to redside.

But then there's things to remake and reroll. I'll finally be able to make Agent Rogue Epsilon properly (no more petless MM!) - partly due to the new powersets, partly due to the Cyborg pack having robotic limbs that don't suck and make sense for a Malta Operative.

And last of all....

I really just want I16.

Seriously. Stalker wants to change electric melee to white thank you.

I've been wanting to get my WS to switch sides and truely become a Nictus like she always was. She came to Primal Earth a nictus, and only operated within the guidelines of 'arresting' without massive destrucion that would hold her accountable.

Rather be a nictus causing havoc with no accountability, you see.

I'm more interested in I16 right now, honestly.

The Kegi-Bots plan to take over the WORLD! Wait .. I wasn't suposed to tell you that ... *placet*

Evil Kheldians make my brain say YAY!

New starting zone makes my brain say YAY also.

However I am still tragically lacking in chainsaw melee for any brutes, so there is work to be done.

Wait a tick, someone help me ignorance? I thought Champions is a different game and is it just coincidentally coinsiding with the ability to switch redside to blueside on here? Or am I losing my mind? What's going on?

However, Angry_Angel brings up good points. I would venture that the developers HAVEN'T thought of those things though...because some of them are more towards the "RPz" and...well...unless I'm RECENTLY mistaken, generally games tend to not treat RPers with any sort of...preference?

((Champions is a different game. It has cell-shading, which I thought at first would be cool, but after seeing it in action, I realize it's just murky and somewhat ugly. Costume pieces tend toward the silly too. Like when Jack Kirby parodied his own work in Not Brand Echhs (old, old superhero satire comic put out by Marvel in the 60's). Haven't seen anything about Champs to recommend it.

The things Angry_Angel posted about are all part of CoH: Going Rogue, which should hit the stores about the same time as Champs Online. In it, heroes and villains will be able to do arcs that can cause them to change their convictions so that heroes go villain and villains become heroes. Not sure which of my own characters that might effect.

There will be some new powersets involved, which, if rumors are right one of them will be pistol blaster. Yes -- a pair of Glocks going "Powpowpowpow" -- or maybe blazing sixguns! The possibilities are endless!

And I16 is gonna be awesome also. Hope you have time to stick around for just a bit longer Sorah, just to see the new toys. ))

Man, I can't wait for Champions Online: Going Rogue







Ara is an awesome troll.

Can you write that in smaller sentences, Ara? My reading and comprehension skills ain't so good.

If Going Rogue hits stores at the same time as Champions Online, I'd be impressed. VERY impressed. Would mean they snuck up on us and released it without any information, or before I16 launches.

I think I16 will launch maybe 2 weeks after Champions Online is out. I would not release it the day of, or the week after if I was marketing. Week of would go un-noticed, week after would still have champions saturating the market a bit. 2 weeks after would have people trying the new shinies of Champions and returning home.

According to an email I deleted a few hours ago, CO is going live Sept. 1, or around that time. Sue me, I just speedread it...

But anyways, back to CoX. I have a psy troller, Horizon, who sees the future, ala Destiny from X-Men. I'm planning for him to be in that grey area, between Hero & Villain.

My only Villain, a Stalker, could very well come blueside for a bit, but I think he'll be a grey area type as well. He's an assassin, and the only real mad-on he has is for Manticore.

I really don't see any of my Heroes going over to Redside. They are all Silver Age of comics type, so side switching never really occurs with them.

Ohhh, legion of evil squids...!
Time to roll me up a warshade so i'll have a character to switch with when GR comes along!

I am so very unimpressed with CO. (NDA has been lifted). I hate the cell shaded look. Spawn camping for a lot of missions, it gets old standing there waiting for somebody to spawn just so you can accomplish a mission. And as far as customizing powers... well... from what they've told us about Issue 16 CoH will be way more customizable than CO (kind of). For some powers in CO you can pick Palm, First, Head, Chest as where the power comes from. But you only get one slider for the color. So, you get to pick locations for a lot of power (CO better). But... you only can control one color (CoX better).
For a lot of body parts you get up to 4 colors, instead of CoX 2 colors. But there are not even remotely the same number of costume options CoX has. Of course, CoX has been pumping out costume options for 5 years and CO just started.
(For those that really care you can do tons of backpacks in CO)
Plus for CO is that you never run out of Endurance. You have a basic attack that builds end and once you've built it you can use bigger attacks. My highest level character is level 15 right now. And I still basically have a 2 power attack chain (I have 3 attacks I can use... but one is kind of pointless because of how good the other is). So cycling between 2 attacks can be a bit boring... which lends to the console feel of the game. It is meant to be played by game controller.
It has loot (which we kind of do... but kind of don't). I am not fond of loot personally, I get tired of trying to figure out if this widget is better than that widget. Is +5 End, +2 Int better than +4 Ego, +3 Con, +1 Dex? I've no idea... and Arcanaville isn't on speed dial... so....
There are some high points. I LOVE the flame flight for my fire guy. It really looks awsome when he "flames on". It is cool that there are so many different kinds of flight. You have the ice flight (Iceman), you have a disc you can ride on flight, normal flight and then fire flight. Oddly they are all different powers not different effects under flight.
They have swinging. And as bad as I'd like to have it... honestly it looks... well... stupid. I saw a guy swinging around in northern Canada. He was swinging across the snow... from nothing. You could see his swing line and there was nothing around to be swinging from. It makes sense amongst the tall buildings of New York... but across flat land with nothing tall around it looks silly. ;shrug
Bottom line is I far prefer CoX and will be staying. It was interesting to see another comic MMO, but it didn't impress me enough to make me leave this one. YMMV.

So.

I16.

Pink Electric Catgirl Boogaloo.

All Elec/Elec blasters, tanks and scrappers with Kin/Elec defenders in support.

All coloured pink. HOT PINK.

Who's with me?

I plan on making my Energy Melee Tanker powers all pink!

PINK POMPOMS OF DOOM would look SO AWESOME!

Despite all the obvious simmilarities, Champions Online is a completely different game then CoH. So different in fact that I see no reason why you couldn't play both (short of obvious monitary deficiencies).

If anything CO plays more like WoW for me. With it's outdoor quests, quest hubs, crafting system, etc, etc, hell even their contacts use the same "!" and "?" to mark quests with. The point is beyond the obvious superhero and customization elements, CO seems to derive more from WoW then it does from CoH.

If you're only going to play one Superhero MMO, Stick with CoH, there's a huge advantage to being part of a game that's been around this long. And with the changes coming in I16 and Going Rogue, things will only get better.
I Can't Wait!

But if you want something different but still want to play superheroes, CO is a very good choice to pick up as well.

Have to admit, CO sort of lost any hope for me when the Beta plays like -that-.

Last 2 Betas I've seen like that less than a week before going live were AoC and WAR.

And WAR...well, I gave it about 5 months. Then I packed up and walked away. Never did get to see the Lost Vale either. I was a sad Flea after that. A really sad Flea because I wanted to see it for fluff and lore reasons more than anything else.

I think this is something a lot of people who love the CO lore have to realise - this game ain't it. You're going to hit the same speedbump WAR did for the lore-junkies. The game may be all well and nice being based off the franchise but it will end up murdering it for you.

Im going to be contrary and just flat out admit that the only reason I'm still playing CoH is because my current PC cant run Champions too good.

Visually, I dislike the game more than CoH, and it has some of the "new MMOness" glitchiness I've just come to expect and accept (been playing MMOs since UO) but honestly, the gameplay itself is vibrant and different enough from both CoH and WoW and the fact it does away with the archaic "Class/AT" systems and lets you truly craft a character that you enjoy.

On the downside, it isnt optimized worth a crap and I can't get but 5-10 FPS, so it's fairly unplayable.

Also, call me Mr. Bitterpants, but Im also annoyed with the whole "nope we cant do that, nope we cant do that, nope we cant do that" we've been advised of for the past 2 years and then suddenly, when competition arrives, "Oh, hey, we can do this stuff!"

Mind you, CoH has done a -lot- of things recently to restore me actually liking the game, but I think whatever changes occurr with GR will be a make or break deal for me personally.

Plus, hey, Im still > : ( that something we kept getting told during CoV beta and prior has been pushed off so long that it suddenly merits an expansion, which is side swapping.