PCGamer CoH article

Zikar is on the money here: the issue isn't how we can white knight CoH/V on its own forums, it is how an influential print magazine bothered to re-review an existing MMO and gave it an average rating.

Commentary that CoH had nothing new to do past lvl 20 isn't exactly new - it's been said since before launch. The issue has always been that in running instanced missions, you see a lot of the same maps with slightly different enemy types and that makes the game repetitive.

That people get past that / don't have the same experience happens, which is why people still enjoy CoH/V. But in this case the reviewer - who has to write a review within a fixed time window and probably doesn't have the ability to explore every corner of the game before sending the article off for review / publication - felt they weren't doing anything new / different after lvl 20. That's a long-time criticism about CoH that hasn't really been dealt with (AE impact aside) by the devs since about I2.

All I'm gonna say, having worked for a magazine in the past, is that money talks. If I'm not mistaken, Champions Online advertised in that magazine and had a 3 page story with a positive take, then COH got a small article in the back with a negative take.

Opinions are fine, but the opinions you find in magazines can sometimes be skewed by money and special interests. Here's my opinion, and I'm not getting paid by anybody.
I tried CO honestly expecting the game to replace COH. It didn't happen, not even close, as I cancelled my preorder after playing through open beta.

First of all, I kept hearing about how superior the graphics were for CO, but I didn't see it that way at all. CO's graphics look like they were aiming for something like 'archie comics' style, very cartoony and fake. The characters all looked like muppets to me. COH could use some fingers on thier models, but other than that, I much prefer COH's graphics to CO"s, though obviously that's just a style preference. Having said that, you'd think a game that is brand new would blow a 5 year old game away in the graphics department, and that was definitely not the case, styles aside.

Secondly, I thought I would prefer open missions to instanced, but again, I was disappointed. The open missions were a pain in the **** with other players 'kill stealing' my objectives, and sitting around waiting for the objective to respawn was really, really lame.

Next, the teaming situation was horrible. First of all there was no real reason to team, and secondly, the teaming mechanics were a mess compared to coh. And even if you put together a team, they were even smaller than coh's 8 man team limits. This is probably something they can work on and fix, but you'd think it would be more developed by launch, considering the fact the game is a mmo.

The mag article claims there's no reason to play past 20 in coh. I felt like there was no reason to play co after getting 3-4 powers. The way co is set up, you can pretty much do anything you need to do with 3-4 powers, and that's nice at the early levels, but it kills motivation to continue developing your toon. It can be a pain to get to 20 in coh, but now I can see the reason for it, slowly developing a character continually gives you another goal to reach and maintains motivation to continue playing that character.

I thought I'd like the totally open framework for power selection as well, but again, I was wrong. Now I can see why so many games use AT's or classes. Yes it 'forces' variation, but without it, there really is little variation in characters and it hurts gameplay, imo. This is especially true in an mmo, where if you have more variation and specialization, you encourage more teaming to fill deficiencies created by said specialization.

I initially enjoyed the energy builder power idea, but quickly realized the problems with it. First of all, it just seems silly that you have to keep using a lesser power to build up enough energy to use your better powers. But more importantly, it makes the gap between ranged toons and melee toons even greater. Why take a melee energy builder that's really only usefull some of the time when you can take a ranged one that can be used far more often and far more effectively. As much as coh favors ranged over melee, co makes the gap even more ridiculous, and as a melee lover, this was not a favorable move.

Then there is the obvious lack of content, which is understandable since co is a new game, but, they nerfed xp so much that there are large gaps in the later levels where you literally run out of missions and are forced to grind mobs for xp, which is significantly slower than xp awarded for missions. Not to mention the massive nerfing that took place just as they went live, which is something that should have been done in testing, not just as the game goes live, but they had already lost me by then.

I guess CO could get better, but right now, COH is clearly the better game of the two imo. The only thing CO has going for it right now is that it's the new shiny, and many players are simply bored with COH, which really hasn't released a whole lot of new content in the past year outside of power proliferation/customization and stuff like that.

If COH puts out a quality expansion with GR that offers a bunch of new content, and starts advertising it at least to the level champions advertises, it would probably walk away from CO with ease. Then obviously, the next big competitor is DC online, and way after that, marvel is developing a new one I believe. COH will never be a WOW, and with all the new competition, it's subscriptions certainly aren't going to grow much, but so long as COH keeps pumping out quality product, I think it can compete and remain lucrative. The biggest factor working against COH is it's lack of advertising and tie-ins, something that DC and Marvel will have that will give them a tremendous advantage.

(bolded for emphasis)

Nice post about what was working and not, but I think this might be the real issue...

I admit I haven't played for very long for the past month or so, but when I was playing last month, Champion didn't seem very empty...and I got into full teams at 5 am on more than one occasion. Which servers are empty?

That

This is true. I didn't see the UK stuff until after my first response.

The guy you're quoting plays on Freedom.

And as to PCGamer...I used to read it when my brother had a subscription. I never really understood where most of their reviews came from--they always seemed a bit...wonky. I'm willing to bet the person mentioning the money angle (CO paid for an ad, they got a 3 page article) is on the right track. Makes sense, really. Newspapers do so many human interest stories because it's a guaranteed sale. It'd be ten kinds of stupid to a glowing article on CO's main competition when CO is sure money for them (both in CO fans picking it up for the article and future ad space).

PCGAMER UKs coverage of CoH has always been terrible. The MMO 'specialists' for the mag are WoW players, and their poor knowledge of other games illustrates their bias.

Eco

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."