Going Rogue - a year later

Yes, I know, it has been just over a year but not by much. Anyway, now that we've had more than enough opportunity to get into GR, what are your thoughts on it a year later? How do you feel about it and why?

For me, I think GR just missed.

The Cons:
-Caused yet another divide between players by locking toons in Praetoria for 20 levels. It seems this is being remedied in FREEDOM and makes one wonder if anyone will bother making Praetorians.

-Using many of the same old, boring, lame maps that we've seen for years. Office, warehouse etc. Even the inside of the hospitals was the same. Just awful. Even the new Prae maps are used over and over - they're also all very similar looking and lack variety.

-Not much unique play. Sure there were some great idea with loyalty changing etc but it was the same old instanced missions and the style of play was very similar. Stale.

-No TFs/SFs? The door missions running the same old is just dull. No new innovations and it seems the 1-20 zone did not get much attention after launch (adding new material).

-Praetoria heavy! We've been bombarded with Praetoria theme, content, looks etc. It has made me sick and I am sure many others feel the same. The goatee universe is weak and should not be the lone focus of the game. Some variety would be great. Have a trial or something where we don't see Praetorians or even hear about them.

-These are my main issues. GR was a lot of fluff but I am surprised it was so limiting. Anyway, the Pros!

-The new zones look great. I think there will be too many and they don't offer anything too unique as far as play but they sure look nice

-Side switching. Thank goodness. A mistake made in this game when you isolated heroes and villains. Good stuff. You need to add more tip missions that feel more super hero but one step at a time.

-New powers were decent. A little underpowered in spots but not bad.

-New costumes. This game's biggest plus, for me, is the ability to customize your toon. This has been neglected for a while. Booster packs were ok and looked more like cash grabs due to lack of wow factor and lack of quality (martial arts pack, anyone?) and then they add the Celestial set as a vet reward?! Just what is going on over there??? That set LOOKS amazing and shows what they can do. Hopefully they do it more often.

All in all, I think a lot of GR could have been added to the game and a lot of the time and effort could have gone to giving us new things to do. The work and art assets could have been put into new and UNIQUE (meaning new maps, enemies etc you won't see elsewhere) TFs or trials or open missions or raids or whatever.

Add things that aren't a grind and fix old problems (most of the old TFs would be a nice fix *cough Synapse cough*. Have it so we progress and don't see the same old stuff all the way along the journey. Give us superhero stuff and not Nazis or D&D etc all the time. All of it fits but give it some variety.

Sometimes I wonder if the devs have become complacent and lost their zeal for the game. I'm not taking a shot at the devs with this. Not the intent. This is just my honest feeling on GR; I expected something different and have to say, I was disappointed.

I like everything about Going Rogue, except the massive performance issues that got even worse for minimal, if at all, eyecandy improvements (for the player who didn't change a thing with his graphic options but has to live with the new warehouse maps and such).

A technological breakthrough for this game would be the ability to control the location and activities of each mob. To create missions where the activities reflect the narrative and not just the same loitering done by.mobs on the street.

I can't believe it's been over a year since GR's release.

I haven't rolled there in some time, and I've deleted what Praetorians I did have. I find the leveling experience is much better in the Isles and Paragon. The Dominator I rolled in Praetoria was my biggest disappointment. Mez resistant mobs at level 9? Really?

There's a lot to like about the missions and stories in Praetoria, and the place looks great and the technology theme is a refreshing change from Primal Earth's heavy magic theme. There's no one to like or root for in the whole place, though. It's one big mess. I tried to make a Hero go down the Loyalist Responsibility path, but I ended up deleting him because of the things that path makes you do aren't Heroic at all.

The game's revenues went right back down to an all-time low after GR's release. A $40 box that gives you 20 levels is a big part of why that was.

Fortunately, Freedom is fixing all this. Maybe I'll roll in Praetoria again sometime if I'm really burnt out on the standard content and need a change of scene. Maybe.

WARNING: I bold names.

Praetoria was a good idea. Having it be a new player experience was not. There's a reason that most MMORPGs have their expansions content either increase or take place at the level cap.

Praetoria's first impression was great, but the more I played there, the less I liked it. The worst thing for was the zone layout. There is no reason to make me ninja run for 2 minutes to get from the auction house to the crafting tables.

I can burn out on alts in Praetoria before lvl 10, because everything from going to the market to crafting to defeating a mob feels like it is taking me forever. Add to that the fact that they designed maps that don't look much better but lag so much worse than the older game and it feels close to drudgery.

I thought about GR today on my Elec/Sonic. He was one of two I rolled in Praetoria, and he is level 48, soon to be 50 -- hard to believe it's been a year since it launched. I'm running Maria's arc, and just encountered the phasing hordes of Resistance in the Nightstar mission. The most tedious mission I've played in a long time.

Parts of Praetoria are nice, but I'm not sure when I'm going to roll someone else there. In fact, I've been waiting on rolling guys just so I don't have to. My son and I are going to establish a couple of leveling pacts, and I'd rather wait until Freedom so I can start in tutorial and just go blue (thinking of rolling a stalker and maybe a corr).

I do wish my system could handle the zones and missions better. Like others, I get substantial choppiness with the new stuff (not entirely thrilled about new Atlas). It'll be better whenever I upgrade (though outside of CoH, not really any reasons I'd NEED to), but until then it's just as easy to avoid.

Right - I'm targeting that VIP headstart window. I'm aware they will be disabled after that.

Why does the original post read like "I wanted a different game but got more of the same game so that's a miss?" It's an expansion to City of Heroes, but it's still City of Heroes, even if by another name. And this is coming from someone who feels Going Rogue missed, too. The over-focus on raid crap to the exclusion of everything else and the complete and total vivisection of any sort of respectable, believable canon story alone are enough to make me not want to remember the last year. Honestly, if I'd dropped my subscription when Going Rogue launched and come back for Freedom, I would probably have been a much happier man.

All of that said... Going Rogue is more City of Heroes. Since I liked City of Heroes and wanted more of it, that's good enough. It's the parts that AREN'T City of Heroes - raiding, most prominently - that piss me off the most. I WANTED more of the same. Since 2004 I've wanted more of the same, as a point of fact.

Luckily, where Going Rogue failed - that is to say, where Going Rogue tried making City of Heroes into something it's not - Freedom looks like it will succeed. And I, for one, cannot wait. Literally cannot. I hope it launches tomorrow. It's a Tuesday...

Quote:

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'm gonna admit, we do end up fighting a lot more standard mooks than any genuinely interesting Super Heroes or Arch-Villains on a regular basis, but I can't help but think of that as part of the drawback of the genre itself.

It would be nice if the Devs basically had some more "Design an NPC" contest with the categories including new enemies to be added to existing groups and new special bosses to fight during tips and newspapers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

What I didn't like about GR:

Praetoria 1-20. Just about everything they possibly could've done wrong about this place, they did. Laggy, glitch-prone maps was just the start. Then there's the enemy factions you face - all way overtuned. Mez protection before control ATs even get their best mezzing powers? Damage types you have no defense against till you've nearly leveled out of the zones? Raw numbers that eclipse anything in 1-20 Paragon or Rogue Isles? Honestly, I think someone at NCSoft was TRYING to drive people away. I will never start a character goldside again.

What I did like:

Pretty much everything else. Faction swaps were long overdue, and while the raid content still needs some work, it's not too bad for a first effort -other than Keyes, which is a shining example of what never to do when designing content. As with pre-GR stuff, the newer content is pretty much all puggable without much worry as to group composition, which other MMOs could learn a thing or two from.

I'm not sure why anyone thought splitting the player bases is a good idea

I like pretty much everything about GR, with one big exception: not being able to leave until level 20. It's all the more annoying that red and blueside characters can travel freely to Praetoria over the same levels.

I realise it's probably a technical limitation to do with character alignments, more than a policy decision, but I still find it discourages me from rolling more Praetorian alts.

I actually don't think making Praetoria a new player experience was a bad thing... Let me rephrase that: I don't think making Praetoria a new player experience would have been a bad thing, had they done this. What they actually did was make Praetoria as end game, then somewhere along the line, it was decided to make it new player experience so they simply dropped level ranges across the board. What you end up is a BRUTALLY hard, completely out of context new player experience that deals with storylines more appropriate for later in the game when players have had a chance to become familiar with the canon and characters have had a chance to play around in the "thug stages" of the game.

As for it being unfinished... Well, to my eyes, it feels like Praetoria was never intended to be a new game, and was indeed never intended to be anything more than just giving basic context to the Incarnate trials. "Look, this is what Praetorian Earth actually is. Get it? OK, then you'll understand why you're fighting hordes of giant robots!" Praetoria itself wouldn't have been rushed if that's all it ever was. Now that it was transformed into an entire side of the game ala the Rogue Isles, well... Now it need to be a lot more than just a basic origin story. Now it needs to be a whole third game.

Quote:

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.