The New Video is Public Now

Ah. Missed that.

What the heck was wrong with that?

Yeah, I would be okay if she didn't get a total make over. Nothing wrong with the current model, in my opinion. And the idea for whip attacks is great, here's hoping!

Psh, no. That's for another game. He was talking about SUPER lumberjacks.

Also, about that "custom jump:" I think it's just an effect they added for nifty visual things in the video, not an actual customization. I'll be happy if that's not the case, but for now, I'm just going to assume it is.

I posted a thread about this a while ago. BaB responded saying it was impossible. hopefully, he just meant "impossible until I make it possible in GR"

Aww... I'm keen on playing an ordinary non-super lumberjack. What is that other game so I can play one?

Monty Python's And Now For Something Completely Gamy MMO. It's in closed beta right now so I can't say much, but lumberjacks have to wear lingerie.

A few things they said irked me a little too:

"CoH is a comic book that has been inserted into a MMO."

After much argument about the subject on the forums, I don't feel that's an accurate description of the game. I would say CoH is a MMO first and foremost with select super hero overtones nailed onto it or smashed up with a brick to fit inside it. Here the MMO conventions take precedence over comic tropes. This animal is way more likely to appeal to MMO fans and spurn comic fans, as I've observed with friends of mine who are one and not the other. Them trying to spin it the other way around is just going to lead to disappointment.


"We actually listen to our players"

When they feel like it, to select players, some of the time, with no clear indication of when they are or aren't listening. Now how about a Blade Runner quote?



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Both of these are true in terms of differentiating CoH from the average MMO. CoH has more comic book in it than most MMOs, and the developers of CoH listen to and communicate with the players more than those of most MMOs. (And as a result, I'm pretty sure they have more desk-induced forehead bruises than the developers of most MMOs.)

I too, wouldn't mind if her 'style' wasn't changed. I am just hoping that she gets herself a resolution increase to be on par with the rest of her dimension.

Actually, I think the devs strike a far better balance between listening to their players without being overly reactionary towards them than I've seen in most other MMOs.

Listening is not synonymous with obeying.


Actually, I do agree with this one at least in general terms, but that doesn't really in any way contradict the quote.


But its an MMO that has in many ways (for good or bad depending on who you talk to) discarded many MMO tropes that were considered canonical when the game was first released in favor of ones that are more consistent with its overall game concept. Its far more solo-friendly and far more solo-centric than is considered even healthy by many MMO observers, for example. That is something that is far more consistent with the comic book genre than the standard MMO playbook. The game is far less focused on gear for progression than most MMOs are (not unique to CoH, but you can almost completely dispense with gear in any form and still get to 50: SOs would put you generally well within the standard difficulty level of the game). It is still the standard bearer for player-driven as opposed to performance-driven appearance customization (functional and representational gear and outfits as opposed to "costumes").

It could do a lot more, but I don't think its fair to ignore how much CoH has bent the classic MMO rules to get to where it is now. Its something easy to take for granted.

Same here. This was the first City of Heroes video I've seen, aside from the custom-animated trailers for each of the three boxed releases, that felt really, really professional to me.

Unfortunately, I think the comments in this thread imply that that's not what current players want. I hope Paragon Studios finds some way to get this into the hands of people who haven't seen the game.

Thanks. The Facebook version has an obnoxious amount of lag.

edit: YouTube version is up

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

I'm happy to have something to put in the hands of people who haven't seen the game.

I don't mean any offense by this, but I'm wondering what other MMOs have you played. By no means is CoH horrible in listening to it's community, but it's not near the best in my experience. For awhile, I played EVE online. It wasn't my favorite MMO, but holycowomahgawd they listen to their playerbase. And I mean, they take it to the extreme. The players elect a small group of players to visit the CCP headquarters to talk to the developers in person. THAT is listening to the community.

Me, personally? Very few. However, let's be honest here: when listing features that differentiate a MMO with the general public as your audience, the baseline is World of Warcraft. In the public consciousness, that's what MMO means. So when reaching out beyond your existing audience, it makes perfect sense to talk about the ways that you are different from World of Warcraft: in this case, a comic book superhero theme, highly customizable appearance, and a friendly community with good developer interaction.

That's one way to look at it.

Another is that they exclude the majority of the community and place the opinions of a handful of players they've befriended ahead of the rest and have given them special treatment and say in matters.

Yet another is that they've snagged themselves some Jr. community reps handpicked from the community. They don't even have to pay them; trips, tours and inside info help keep people in your pocket.

I say this speaking generally. I don't know EVE and its community from Adam. It's just a common tactic for larger companies conscious of PR. Look how Valve flipped those Left 4 Dead 2 haters with a simple tour of the studio.


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From a technical perspective, I think Eve Online does an excellent job in communicating complex game implementation issues to their game community: better IMO than Paragon Studios does. However, the CSM is, I believe, a special case scenario. First, I don't think its necessarily all that much better in terms of communication than just PMing the devs here or seeing them in person at a Herocon, something *every* player can theoretically do either of as opposed to going through representatives. Eve Online is a larger game, though, with more complex game mechanics in certain respects, making such one to one communication more difficult than for City of Heroes.

And I think representative councils are extremely dangerous things to contemplate. Even though Atari bungled their first attempt, I think no matter what they did they would have gotten significant blowback from players asking why they had to go through intermediaries just to "make their voice heard." I think a similar problem could happen here if PS tried to make a player council. Eve has a player community that is socially primed to accept structures like that, given that the game is heavily focused on such player organizations. The stellar council is just a social extrapolation of other Eve player social structures. There's no such similar template in City of Heroes for that sort of thing, and it isn't therefore necessarily going to be as accepted.


I'm not that familiar with the CSM's operations, but I suspect we have more access to Paragon Studios than the CSM does with CCP.

I'm just going to take a moment to imagine how the process for electing a player representative group would go in the CoH community.

... oddly enough, the only mental image I can conjure up is a room full of wailing infants.

(I'm the cute one in the ducky hat - crying just as loud as the rest, of course. :P)

Nor is it the same as hearing, which is likely why they didn't make that claim.


That is true, but you can't deny there room to be more faithful to the concept. Something that was progressive seven years ago doesn't hold up in this case. I argue they were more conservative than not and in my opinion still have a long way to go. I'll never deny CoH was a good first stab at adapting the genre, but that doesn't make it a great adaptation over all and I think it's misleading to call it a comic book inserted into a MMO.

Not to start discussion about it, but you don't consider SO (or any) enhancements gear? They wear out/become outleveled, you slot them on your character and they improve your stats (at the power level). To me that's gear. Simpler than some other game's gear, but it looks/walks/quacks like a duck.

Like I said, I don't deny they got some stuff right. I just don't think that is enough to characterize the game the way they did. A MMO with some moderate super hero overtones and window dressing perhaps, but not a comic book inserted into a MMO.


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Its gear, but I didn't say the game didn't have gear, just that it wasn't as focused on gear being critical to progression. And with the invention system, you can basically opt out of the gear rate race by the 30s if you want to, because you'll have non-expiring gear that is no worse than level 50 SOs by then for very little actual cash. Especially if you frankenslot stuff few people want: I was playing around with some low level alts over the weekend and finding that there are a lot of inventions you can get even in the teens that are relatively inexpensive and would serve nearly as well as a full complement of SOs would (level 20 dual aspect IOs give an aggregate 32% bonus: 16% to each of the two aspects assuming Schedule A attributes).

The great irony of the invention system is that its better for *both* gear fanatics and people who don't like gear. For those that do, there's plenty of pursuit items in there. For those that don't, there's plenty of non-expiring non-breakable superior-to-the-standard-stuff enhancements in there that let you exit the gear hamster cage fairly early in the game. I've found builds that just slot whatever you come across or happen to buy as you go along, that end up at level 50 with a hodgepodge mix of level 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 inventions play perfectly fine compared to pre-invention SO days. Better, in many cases, in fact, and for about the same or less total expenditure overall (including basic selling of drops).