This is vaguely reassuring...

Obviously City of Heroes has a huge content advantage over the recent "johnny-come-lately" MMOs.

But just to provide some historical perspective from a Devil's Advocacy point of view there were a lot of people complaining about the "lack of content" a month or so after City of Heroes launched and many people were predicting it was going to fail very quickly. Obviously events have proven those people wrong.

It goes to show that the amount of content really isn't the only factor which determines how well a superhero MMO does in the marketplace. As we all know CO also started with a relatively small amount of content and as fate would have it managed to falter for a myriad of other reasons. DCUO will succeed or fail based on the quality/uniqueness of its content, not necessarily on the overall quantity of its content.

I'm kind of "meh" on that, levelling is quite fast these days. I'm more interested in the heavy hinting for Animal and Steampunk Booster Packs.

Ummm the competition most assuredly DOES have travel suppression.

All I'm going to say is "GROUNDED". You'll learn what that means soon enough.

It will fail -- I'm genuinely surprised how terrible DCUO is. After CO you'd think the competition would pay attention and learn a few things. They made some awful mistakes.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Yeah, it's pretty much impossible to make an MMO that doesn't feel as if it's lacking in content at launch unless you use a random mission generator and that tends to result in content tends to feel very bland.

Or to use the CoH approach and launch with lower than intended maximum level. Gives your content guys time and space to breath, and lets you seed the game with medium level players.

The problem with an intentional raising of the level cap for purposes of seeding the game world world is that it can signals to casual players that the level cap will continue to be raised in future updates.

Your son sounds like he'll be a goldmine to a good shrink someday.

"But daddy, I got the highest score in the class on the math test, and I won an essay contest, and I ran the fastest time on the racetrack..."

"Not good enough, son. You already did all those things last week. Better have the best score on the math test in the entire district, and paint a masterpiece in oils, or it's the box for you."

City of Heroes did indeed have a serious content shortage at launch, at least for a good number of players (like me). It wasn't as noticeable if you teamed regularly, but there were content gaps in every five level range, and a huge content gap in the upper 30s. Most of those gaps were filled by a mission completion bonus boost in Issue 2, and of course the rest has been filled in over time.

BUT! CoH has always had an alternate leveling path. You can grind enemies for XP in this game. You can fill in the gaps by grinding, if you can put up with grinding. (Personally I can't stand aimless streetsweeping, but the game really was designed to accomodate that kind of leveling.) The other superhero MMOs don't really support that. You need to do missions to level. And CoH, even with those gaps, had many more missions at launch than those other games. (Granted those missions were very bland and repetitive by today's standards.)

The other superhero MMOs are fairly short games. The new one justifies that by concentrating on an "end game", and we'll have to see how well that works out. Personally, I don't like end games. If the content up to the end isn't going to keep me playing for a long time, I'm not that interested.

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.

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

That's certainly true. For example, super speeders who are used to being reduced to a jog in this game will get just the same kind of experience in that game. With no stealth. And enemies in the streets will continue to shoot at you to slow you down no matter how much higher in level you are. (But hey, you can run up the sides of buildings.)

What if it's the long-awaited Pack Animal?

Part of me agrees with you.

The other part is embarrassed to recommend the game to people knowing they'll be looking at mitten hands, painted faces and those awful, awful NPCs who look as though they were carved from wood and painted by children before being released onto the streets of Paragon City. Especially because everyone always plays up the character creator and, while the costume selection is great, the models you put them on really do fall short these days.

That's part of the new booster called "The Pigeon Pack"

Seriously though, if they have an option for a real out of combat pet like a dog (Shiba please), cat or bird then I'll buy it, I'm not really into animal heads but I know a lot of people are. Hope they enjoy!

I do not see the pic anywhere. Link please? Thanks.

Edit: OK, I see the picture above me... where did it come from?

Edit Edit: OK, it apparently is from the CoH Facebook page.

They do? I think the models still hold up. In fact I think our models are actually fairly well-done and realistic. CO came out just recently (comparatively) and its models were all stupid and cartoony.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

HOLY SWEET SPARKPLUGS!! O_O

David! You are THE MAN!
Jay! I take it all back! You rock!


Feeeeeeeeeeckkkk yeeeeeeeaaah! /air guitar

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.

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

In my opinion, yes. I'll agree that CO's are worse, though but in the grand scheme of MMORPGs, I think CoH's are looking dated in several respects. It's all a matter of opinion, of course.

Edit: That said, the eagle head looks nice. Not that I'm really into an animal pack but hopefully it'll have some pieces that inspire wider use. For that matter, to touch on the faces thing, the faces that came with the mutant pack are fantastic and it's only too bad that the older faces don't compare. If the old faces were done with that much detail, I could almost overlook the meat-mittens

I am in love!

10 feathery thumbs up!


Edit: any mention of a release date?

What CoH had was a lack of competition to make it painfully obvious what a content gap does to the game. Street sweeping helped, and in fact at one point it was better XP than missions anyway, but I think if CoH launched today with the same kinds of gaps it had at launch, it would die a quick death. It was a mistake we were allowed to make, but no other MMO will ever be allowed to make. Today you're punished for content gaps in a way totally unknown to CoH when it launched.

I'm crossing my fingers for Carp heads!

Don't forget the Bull!

Nope. We already have Man. Then there will be Eagle, Lion, and Ox. This will complete the Apocalypse theme of the The Coming Storm.

CoH will then be renamed Left Behind: The MMO.