How To Distinguish Ourselves?

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Originally Posted by Partsman But my point is this: Uninformed buyers, impulse buyers, gift buyers will be more likely to purchase or try out CO if it is perceived that that game is a sequel to ours, and not just a new competition.

Well, you know what they say about not being able to fix stupid... right?

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Originally Posted by Partsman And if they don't like it, and are still under that assumption, what reason will they have to try out our older, less-advanced prequel to CO? They will shy away from it.

And here's your answer. What Paragon Studios needs to do is advance CoH/V at least cosmetically. In other words, most people seem to think that if a game's hardware requirements list the most expensive graphics cards on the market, and the most RAM and CPU money can buy, then the game is sure to be awesomesauce! Perhaps that's what Paragon Studios and NCSoft should do. Give CoX a facelift, and simply lie on the new shiny box and say the game requires a beast machine to run.

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Originally Posted by Partsman I believe that NCSoft's marketing has got to do something visible to distance itself from CO in order for us to be able to draw in newer customers.

But that's exactly what they're trying to do... with Going Rogue.

I believe you are over-thinking about this and who cares what people think about any MMOs. All comes down to subscribes; is the game getting enough? and/or are the Devs doing enough to keep those subscribers?

I could care less about what is happening behind the scenes; I pay to play this game because I want to and have for 5 years. I had ZERO interest in trying ChampO so did not, could care less if its "CoH 2". I am interest in the DC MMO and if I like the game enough I will leave CoH not because the comparison but because I want to.

Just like most of the threads posted these days you and others are speculating way too much and mainly about nothing; just relax and have fun with the game.....or leave.

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Originally Posted by Juteboxhero just relax and have fun with the game.....or leave.

Quoted for sound advice, unless one is an employee...

According to many reviews, the costume creator. The ability to resize bits and pieces of anatomy to that degree, as well as have asymmetrical costume bits that aren't specifically-added and one-off, is seen to be an improvement over CoH's costume editor. The relative lack of options is excused with the young age of the game, possibly drawing on the idea that stuff like being able to choose different glove options for each hand is part of the engine, while the quantity of options itself is something that can be added on later.

Art style preference is subjective. I've noticed that a lot of people who don't like CO's artstyle enough for it to be a major factor are playing CoH, which implies that the people who play CO at least don't mind the art style. As an anime fan (even more specifically a moe bishoujo anime fan) who's been in plenty of non-anime forums (like this one), I can understand the subjectivity.

In terms of gameplay, and indeed in my view in general, it's not "CoH 2.0" or "CoH 0.5" or "WoW wannabe" or anything like that. It's a different game, because it mixes and matches from all sorts of different sources while adding in some new stuff of its own. Like just about every other creative endeavour.

I'm not saying that it is blanket-impossible to compare CoH and CO, but more that there are so many points of comparison that it helps to be precise. Are we comparing it as Superhero MMOs? Are we comparing it based on the Superhero part (theme, style) or the MMO part (gameplay)? Which part are we comparing?

If CO manages to clear up most of the bugs and shortcomings that are, from all reports, common to every MMO launch, it could well be a viable alternate Superhero MMO to CoH. But the comparisons based on genre and very broadly-defined gameplay mechanics is like comparing WoW and DDO because they are both fantasy MMOs. It just doesn't work in any useful way.

It's not so much that people are "dumb and gullible" as much as the little details are frankly far too trivial for the general public to care about. To most, it makes not a whit of difference whether CO is made by the same people as CoH, the same company, or a wholly different creator altogether.

This does lead to an odd case on the CO forums (not the CoH forums, because gods know the forumites here will never let anyone forget about the differences between Cryptic Studios Then And Now) where the devs are perceived to be both Experienced Hands at MMO-creation and Completely New.

See, what I'm saying is this - Champions has a lot of things City of Heroes doesn't have. I would have been surprised and bewildered if that weren't the case. However, it LACKS just about as many things that City of Heroes has, as well. That part I did not expect. In fact, it lacks so many things that I found myself UTTERLY incapable of replicating any of my current City of Heroes characters bar one in such a way that I was anything but disgusted at looking at them. And that's the ones that were at all possible and didn't just plain old lack the appropriate parts. Like a sleeveless trenchcoat. Seriously?

My beef with Champions Online and its "lack" of costume pieces isn't a lack of pieces at all. It's the fact that the majority of the pieces that ARE there are utter garbage to my eyes, designed to fit someone's idea of visual appeal that is completely contrary to mine. The few decent pieces I could find and work with ended up popping up in all of my costumes, which is a BAD sign right there. And, yeah, I know it's subjective, but I completely and irredeemably HATE the art style of this game. For a game that's supposed to be cartoony and, yes, even a little wacky, it feels more like those stilted 90s 3D movies that you'd find in games like the original Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. It's not cartoony at all, it's like some sort of half-way point between high-poly still life and awkward 3D cartoon without a clear, established style/

And again - it's probably subjective, but the game fell FAR below my expectations. I expected it to beat City of Heroes in, if not all, then at least NEARLY all ways. After all, Jack expended great effort boasting to exactly this effect and dising City of Heroes, so I expected Champions Online to be as magnificently better as he claimed. It wasn't. It may not be a BAD game, but City of Heroes 2 it isn't. Not even close. It's about as much City of Heroes 2 as Aion is World of Warcraft 2.

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.

I'd suggest a top hat, a monocle, and a small moustache.

Like my Warshade! He's a very distinguished chap.

I don't think a monocle would work with Statesman's goofy half-helmet thing. (Seriously, will someone either find him the rest of the helmet or convince him to just wear a mask? Or even to just not bother? I mean, it's not like the guy has a secret identity any more.)

This is something that's been opined on these forums very early on - I forgot exactly by whom, I remember silently agreeing with them. CO's feature list seems to have been drawn largely from the request threads on the CoH forums, and the poster predicted that for this very reason, CO would lack a great deal of things that CoH players takes for granted.

So things like "jetpacks and quivers" which were requested in countless CoH forum posts were in from day 1. On the other hand, things like "mission sharing between teammates and rewards for helping a teammate complete a mission" which are already in CoH (and thus no requests for them) are only being added now after player feedback makes it clear they are vital.

True, a lot of people were saying that. Before I knew anything about the game, I, myself, suspected that for all the things Champions was hyped for, it would lack a lot of the things that made City of Heroes good, especially things created after the handover. In essence, Jack was promising an entire sea of gimmicks, but he never spoke about the basics, and may people assumed they would be there. I, myself, doubted they would be, but in the interest of fairness and from honest-to-God excitement, I allowed myself to believe I was wrong when it came time to actually try the game. I really wanted to like it. I just couldn't. All the things that I liked City of Heroes for were simply missing, replaced with a lot of things I didn't care about.

But the mistake was my own. I wanted to like Champions, so I approached it with the belief that the hype was true, and it really was a better game. While it may not have been a BAD game, I cannot say it was a BETTER game in good faith. It has better elements, but as an overall experience I found it nothing but inferior. Literally NOTHING but inferior. Maybe in a few years it will be good, likely when they find out what works and what doesn't, but right now the game seems to be selling more on hype than on quality. At least in my opinion.

Once upon a time, City of Heroes sold on hype, too. Balance was poor, content was little and bugs were plenty. Right now, the game is based more on a much better understanding of what makes a good game and what we, as customers, really want out of this game. In fact, if I were to compare City of Heroes back in April 2004 to Champions Online now... Well, begrudgingly, but I would put Champions clearly ahead. Here's the thing, though - it's not April 2004. It's October 2009. Jack had how many years of experience with City of Heroes before he ditched? He should have learned plenty of lessons, should have known what to do and what not to. He had a game literally ready-made for him to draw from. So why start over and release a game that is, at best, somewhat better than City of Heroes was two-three years ago?

I expected more from Champions. Instead, it ended up being just one more MMO out of many with only a few gimmicks to differentiate it. I call that a missed opportunity. My sentiment goes to Cryptic. May they manage to clean up their act eventually. So far, I am not impressed.

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.