Interesting Review on ZAM

Hey folks,

I’ve been reading over a lot of reviews of City of Heroes Going Rogue recently, and there are a few I’ve been mulling over in my head the last couple of days. One in particular is a video review called the BFF Report, and while I don’t necessarily agree with the reviewer’s insights into CoH and Going Rogue, I thought it might spark some interesting discussion here on the Message Board.

I’d like to hear your opinions. What do you think about what this reviewer has to say?

Wow...

Umm Ocho...

Thread started in GR section about it...

Watched through most of it.
I will agree with the reviewer about the 3rd person shooter aspect of CoX. It's one of the things I like about City.
Also his comment about not being able to tweak graphics settings with out actually being in the game I can also agree with.

Otherwise, It's not a bad review of GR.

Thank you for the time...

@Travlr (Main) / @Tymers Realm (Test)

A few things, and I'll try not to go off on a tangent:

1) Has this dude never played City of Heroes/Villains before? Guessing not since, you can't die from falling.

2) How the hell did he get Ninja Run and Mish TP? He bought the MAC pack and the Ninja pack?

For the things I agree with him on are:

1) The screen resolution, YES! It used to be full screen and yes, it would be nice to be able to tweak your settings before launching the game for the first time.

2) The mobs running away. As he showed in the demo, that does happen. Yet, no answer from the dev's, its a natural AI occurrence.



Nothing he said during the video was wrong. Had both the positives and negatives from the game.







Hawk

Funny stuff. He's right about most of the criticisms, but really, if that's the worst things there are to say about City of Heroes versus other games, I'm feeling pretty good. Probably the most hard-hitting criticism was about most of the missions looking more-or-less the same due to the limited (though growing) number of tilesets, but he even qualified that criticism with the observation that it's pretty standard fare for any MMO.

My main concern is that players new to MMORPGs (not just new to City of Heroes, but MMOs in general) might see it and think, "Wow, those are some harsh criticisms," when in fact, they're pretty lightweight weaknesses compared to other games.

I did think that the criticism about the mission teleport power was a bit off-base. It's meant to teleport you across several zones and miles of space that would take you several minutes to traverse normally, not to save you from running 700 yards.

Some observations:


- He seemed to have such preconceived notions (probably from his other gaming experience) that there would be a "good" and "evil" side that he couldn't GRASP that each side was supposed to have its own extremes of good and evil within it. He points out the absurdity without realizing that it's his assumption that may be wrong.

- The stretched screen issue? Haven't noticed that in ages... while it only affects newcomers, I agree it could really be a newcomer issue.

- I guess in the smaller 3-zone Praetoria with few cross-zone missions, the value of using the teleporter to move across multiple zones was lost on him.

- It would've been awesome if he'd been generic'ed while playing.

EDIT: I do have to say that while I expected fewer "in-zone" missions (as opposed to door missions), it would have been nice to see more zone activity... I mean, virtually every non-GR zone... beyond the level 1 starters... has some sort of Giant Monster or Zone Event. I haven't found any in Praetoria yet.

Why not a breakout from Mother Mayhem's hospital?
A breach in the barrier, allowing a DE incursion against the Power plants?
Ghouls pouring out into the city?

That footage was from Beta. Most of the booster packs were active for all test accounts.
He was probably under the impression everyone gets Ninja Run and Mission TP.

I bet he died alot.

I found it amusing how he couldnt 'sign off' by becoming street pizza off of Tyrants tower. That was funny.

Also, he did get the Mission Teleporter wrong. I mean, it can work across whole zones. He kinda short changed that.
It wasnt a terrible review, and he did give it some fairly good praise as he took into account 'This came out in 2004. Go figure.'

The comments I see are the same trollish anti-cox stuff I expect. The happy players are in game playing and busy. The likes of those who went to CO and whatnot are the ones who always slam CoX in comment boxes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I agree with everything he said, the good and the bad. One thought and one exception:

1) Did you guys give him a review account? I can't fathom another way that he has Ninja Run and the Mission Teleporter and misunderstand that the latter is to be rarely used. Edit: Warden De Dios makes me look the fool.

2) If you don't understand that Praetoria is a morality tale in which everyone is wrong to a degree, your review borders on invalid. His pointing out that he was doing something bad for The Resistance (Which he calls the good guys) is like saying that Pyramid Head's behavior is abhorrent. Ya think!?

Other than that, I like it. He managed to nail the game for several legitimate complaints while still highlighting it's strengths that have kept me here. Better yet, he didn't summarize at the end. He let viewers make up their own mind.

This guy rocks and it's a decent review.

He was wrong about a few things, but he's just so damn charming. I lol'd quite a bit.

His description of the loyalists was 100% accurate

not a horrid review, obviously as a guy who played for 6 years, i can chuckle at the stuff he got wrong, but ya know, we have new players coming in, and this may well be how they see things. so i took notes. power flow, enhancing, loyalist/res are not jsut evil/good optimising your screen resolution, check. he overall seemed fairly positive, i loved how the no death from falling thing tripped him up, and even the repetition of maps issue he did qualify by saying that it was a problem with the gorilla as well, so i have no specific issue with it and it did make me aware of stuff i have forgotten in all these years.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I definitely think the points about foes running away ridiculous distances and that all the maps look "samey samey" really quickly are valid.

That said, he was funny and i got a good chortle out of his attempts at a suicide leap.

Also, as a complete aside, my partner is not enjoying Praetoria at all. He finds the "choose your own adventure" (his phrase) very intimidating, fearing he can make a wrong or bad choice that will cripple him down the road.

Found myself saying "**** yes that is crap" more than once, specifically about the mobs fleeing and the same-ol' same-ol' mission tilesets. It's a great game but even after six years there are silly design choices and limitations like these that still irritate. Would it really be that bad to limit fleeing? Could we move the intern who is running roughshod over the UI design to making new mission maps or even just new textures for the existing ones?

Overall the review was a good one(meaning that it was informative and useful to a new player) and it was favourable to the game. I think the designers/devs would do well to listen to reviews like this and consider what is said in them when they are clinging to some of the weaker design decisions in the game.

Is Paragon Studios and Zam.com forming some mutual interest society? Between the City of Heroes laptop give-away, the interview with free jetpack codes and now being asked to check out some review, that's more interest than Zam.com has shown in CoX than the previous six years combined.

I'm wondering if this is some new era in game site outreach and advertising.

I hate to say it but the guy was spot on with the review. The whole enemies run away thing has so gotten out of control to the point where control ATs are almost required unless you want to chase everything. I end up inviting doms and trollers to just about every team I make now because its just too much to deal with. Seriously Castle or who ever dev has the ability to change critter AI will you please tone down the whole AI run away thing. Its stupid and its pointless since none of the npcs ever run away to get help. I could see if it was like other MMOs where one critter could aggro another spawn on you but this has never happened the entire time I have ever played CoX. What exactly is the purpose of them running away?

Pretty rubbish review aimed at the lowest common denominator, some accurate complaints, a whole ton of misconceptions and idiocies ranging from the silly to the damn right stupid. He spoke too fast and had an annoying accent. He deliberating tried to speak 'dumb' about a lot of things which is something I find annoying.

Overall, the review was pretty crap, I wouldn't want to judge a game on that; I wont be going back to that site!

I can't believe anyone could stand listening to that dude for the whole video. I had to stop right after character creation.

I have to say, I lol'd a lot ... just because of his presentation. Even his down points were delivered in a humorous fashion... which tells me that he probably actually had a lot of fun with it.

I thought his reasoning for picking Dual Pistols was telling... because he thought it would be easy to figure out... I can see this thought process happening with a lot of FPS players. Unfortunately, Dual Pistols is NOTHING like FPS... at least not right off the bat. It takes a little more figurin' out than the average FPS/Pistol/Gunfu game.

The criticism about the inability to adjust screen graphics before entering the character creator is a good point.

The comment about the "standardized" instances is something to take note of. Praetoria is still new, and us long-time players have seen the other tilesets in PC & RI. So WE know there is more out there, but I can see a new recruit getting bored with the "sameness" of Praetoria.

The "run around/talk to" mishes have been a long standing player complaint. We really don't like them much.

The inconsistent AI: either they run away "to get a soda", or they stand around to pummel you when you try to rez. Can't seem to win for losin'. The run away chicken-s*** AI is, IMO, the most annoying.

I've always thought the base/mission/WW/Pckt D animation was waaaaaaaaay too long. As a continuing player, I shrugged it off, but I can see a new player thinking "wtf?".

And LOL at the attempted suicide jump.

Things he seemed to love:

• The character creator,
• the beautiful graphics,
• the enhancement system,
• the action (even at lvl 10),
• the "moral" choices.

Just a really quick thing...

Am I really the only player that doesn't mind mobs running away (And no, not just on my zappy zappy blaster)?

Seriously... One of my favorite early/low-level newbie moments was on my scrapper in Atlas Park chasing down that Hellion that tried to run away... Chasing him up the fire escape, onto a roof... onto another roof... until finally slamming him hard to the ground.

Me... I love some of the fresh new adventures that spawn from things like the Physics stuff and them running away.
I'm just surprised to see nearly everyone say how it is a major flaw within the game.
If I was about to get my butt whooped by some Super... I might try and run too... And it can lead to some fun now and then.
(Also, I like watching some foolish players chase them right into several other mobs, haha)
Maybe we can all play the Ducks In A Barrel MMO coming out (Can I mention that on these forums? *smiles sweetly*)!!