And this is why City of Heroes will always be unique
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2012-03-07 19:05 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Interesting the selective surgery performed on this thread.
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Originally Posted by Freitag
Hi everyone,
This thread is pretty interesting, and we appreciate the constructive discussion that's going on. All we ask is that you avoid discussing other games specifically, and follow other forum rules as applicable. All the best, ~Freitag |
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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Honestly, I'm a bit irritated my money helps pay for this. You should have better use for my cash than scrubbing references to other games from the forums.
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Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
Interesting the selective surgery performed on this thread.
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I am a gold name again. I don't mention this "out loud" because I think any players will care. I mention it because I make positive votes with my wallet as well as negative ones. I want our friend Detective Freitag to know that his restraint in respect to allowing the thread to live had a material effect on the company's bottom line. An earth-shattering effect? No. But it was a material effect nonetheless.
I guess this means that a new Darkness Controller is probably going to be showing up in Atlas Park today, heh.
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I was listening to the Twister soundtrack at the end of a four hour drive from San Antonio to Dallas for a job interview (which I got, soon to be teaching in Date, Fukushima...and, yes, I know where that is...no, I don't own a geiger counter).|
Originally Posted by Tannim222
I recall the old EQ days of travelling from one continent to another before all the high level wizard and druid ports, or the moon ports. If I'm not mistaken, there was one particular voyage that could take 45 minutes, between sitting at the docks waiting for the right boat, getting to said boat, travelling on that boat, zoning, traveling, zoning again, and arriving at the docks of your destination.
Then I discovered that by hopping off the boat after the first zone, at the right spot, swimming and catching another dingy to another boat, you got to your destination faster. That's if I remember all that correctly. Either way, it was a horrid mess. Sometimes you really did feel like the world was really large, and there was so much to explore, and that was wonderful. But it sure got old fast, particularly if you were trying to catch up with others to form a team. |
Anyway, one of the songs on the Twister track has the line: "Living in a world of virtual reality" repeated several times.
So, after driving from around 4am to around 7am or 8am, my brain immediately supplies:
"Must be Everquest."
Thrythlind's Deviant Art Page
"Notice at the end, there: Arcanaville did the math and KICKED IT INTO EXISTENCE." - Ironik on the power of Arcanaville's math
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This argument was stupid when it was used in reference to Knights of the Old Republic 12 years ago, and it's still stupid now.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
That's one of the major problems with using fake Star Wars to try and sell the game - to score big sub numbers, they need to attract very casual gamers/non-gamers, in the way that WoW became a game for people who don't really play games - but to achieve that kind of breakout success, they'd need real Star Wars as a selling point, because the movies are the reference point everyone thinks of when they hear the name Star Wars.
Using the name creates an expectation that the game can't fulfill - there's nothing genuinely Star Wars about it at all. |
Actually, the other arguments in your post are pretty stupid too.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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Licensed fan fiction just doesn't have the same attraction as the real thing |
Originally Posted by BellaStrega
This argument was stupid when it was used in reference to Knights of the Old Republic 12 years ago, and it's still stupid now.
Actually, the other arguments in your post are pretty stupid too. |
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I know you'll say anything to support your ridiculous moon logic, but it would help if your declarations had some resemblance to the real world.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Licensed fan fiction just doesn't have the same attraction as the real thing
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Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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Well, uh...bully for you? |
Originally Posted by rsclark
I can, and it takes very little effort to do so.
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Until I can see some sort of breakdown of stats that supports your argument, I think my statement (which purports no real argument other than I think the game is doing well, and presumably is doing something well enough to get those numbers) stands nicely on its own.S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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I would probably hate that. If the zones auto exemp you, it would take away part of the games character progression, and I wouldnt like random people poping onto my team without my, or the team leaders control.
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Originally Posted by Silver Gale
ArenaNet are the only group of mavericks who started from the idea of "how do we remove obstacles that get in the way of teaming?". And their approach has basically been taking CoH's system and improving on it.
(SSK is good, but how about if every zone in the game auto-exemped you to its max level? Sharing mission completions and improving rewards for teams is good, but what if you didn't even have to invite other people to your team at all? Oh hey, most character builds are self-sufficient, but almost any team-up is greater than the sum of its parts.) |
Jay Doherty: Yes, there was this one night that I was ready to go home but had to drop the browns off at the super bowl before I left for home. While on the throne it hit me. I stayed for a few more hours and that why we have the pain pads in the game.
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Its extreme, but there is a kernel of truth in it I can't ignore: I find that trying to play Jedi as my mind's eye thinks of Jedi is almost the worst possible thing I can do. My counselor plays far better almost never touching her lightsaber, and leveraging companions tends to be just as important as whatever you're doing. I find when I stop thinking of it as a genre game and start thinking about it as a generic MMO, my performance gets a lot better.|
Originally Posted by BellaStrega
This argument was stupid when it was used in reference to Knights of the Old Republic 12 years ago, and it's still stupid now.
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This is mostly a matter of personal perspective, but I find that its far more often that I'm forgetting I'm even playing an MMO when I'm playing City of Heroes than with any other game I'm playing. I know probably all the ways to game the AI in this game, and my knowledge of what I'm fighting is probably better than most MMO players for most games. But I tend to forget all that, or at least not really dwell on it most of the time I'm playing. I'm just shooting stuff. I know this because when I find myself in a situation where I feel doing the right thing is critical - say in a very tough mission or on a trial or task force badge run or something similar - its extremely noticable to me that I'm playing a completely different game. Or maybe the game is the same but there's a completely different me playing it.
When The Matrix Online was being beta tested and then released, I mentioned how weird it was that replicating the *feel* of the movies was easier in City of Heroes than in MxO. That game tried to replicate the mental state of melee fighting with what I called "chicklet combat" at the time. The problem was that it didn't evoke the martial arts combat I think most people were expecting, and certainly not what I was expecting.
I personally think if you're going to use an IP for a game, the game should not just draw backstory from that IP, its gameplay should evoke something important about the IP. In many ways, Arkham Asylum is *all* evocation, and it seems to have done well there. And I think City of Heroes tries harder to evoke its powers concepts than invoke their mechanics (although it could do better), and I think that is to the game's overall benefit.
I think the best way I can put it is that not only do I like to play City of Heroes, I like to watch myself play City of Heroes. That's not always true even of other games I actually like to play.
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I used to take it as a given that MMO forums needed to eliminate specific references and compare-and-contrast threads. However, I've now seen it allowed for a year and change and with only a small amount of moderation effort, it turns out to produce a much more interesting set of discussions, without the feared degeneration into chaos.
I think as the market has matured, more people have gotten in the habit of playing two MMOs at a time, and thus not being inclined to holy wars with all other MMOs.
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I am something of a method RPer, and I tend to play all MMOs by playing the character as I think the character ought to behave.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I think the best way I can put it is that not only do I like to play City of Heroes, I like to watch myself play City of Heroes. That's not always true even of other games I actually like to play.
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This is much less of a detriment to my success in CoH than it is in some games.
There's a popular non-MMO game which recently got re-released on iOS devices, where the game designers advise you that if you try to play like a modern civilized person, or like a naive barbarian, you will suck at the game; to do well, you have to adopt the perspective of the setting. CoH isn't that extreme, but you certainly can choose to play like a hero if you want.
Doing a QR here...
Having just come from there, and having played a few other games, I think Arcana (unsurprisingly) hits a lot of things right on the head.
There are things that my friends (from here) and I seem to find ourselves referring back to COH on fairly frequently:
- Travel. Just getting people together - even on the same planet - can take ridiculous amounts of time. If they're on different planets... yeah, take a break while you wait.
- Communication. You can make custom channels. And hope you, and everyone else, remember to join them. On each character. One of the biggest repeat comments I recall hearing is "God, I miss Globals."
- Teaming - is awkward. And really, a four person team still feels too small to me. It doesn't "feel" like things scale properly, either (well, properly in COH terms.)
That's aside from a few other complaints, which I carry across from other games. I mentioned in my "I'm back" that I was just looking forward to getting a bunch of guys around my tank to smack down. Most other games... if you have two (and I don't mean via crowd control, 1-2 locked down, concentrating on one, I mean having two things beating on you,) you may well be in trouble. A certain other winged NCSoft game, at least in the early levels... well, my Spiritmaster (think that's the type) let me finally do taht somewhat safely. Unless we got anything even slightly stronger than usual.
- And the one thing that just ticks me off to no end... insta-healing enemies. Yes, you defeated me. My corpse is here. Why are you now at full health? Regen, fine. If there's a medic, great, I can live with that... but otherwise, it's just frustrating.
However, I do also think/agree that too many others in the MMO world - both players and developers - are stuck in those standards, and not enough would look at how COH approaches things. Which is a pity.
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I've never thought of myself playing my characters as I thought they *ought* to behave. I play my characters more like me if I was in their circumstances. But I think the critical issue is that I don't ask how the game expects me to play, I play as I expect me to play.
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Originally Posted by seebs
I am something of a method RPer, and I tend to play all MMOs by playing the character as I think the character ought to behave.
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There is that feeling that if you play according to how you envision a glowsword wielder (from movies i assume) that certain class choices doesn't quite fit that image. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Its extreme, but there is a kernel of truth in it I can't ignore: I find that trying to play Jedi as my mind's eye thinks of Jedi is almost the worst possible thing I can do. My counselor plays far better almost never touching her lightsaber, and leveraging companions tends to be just as important as whatever you're doing. I find when I stop thinking of it as a genre game and start thinking about it as a generic MMO, my performance gets a lot better.
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I say this having also experienced that.
Not sure what advanced class you picked but if it's what i'm thinking then yes, there's a consular advanced class that you have to rely less on your physical weapon to be more effective. Which doesn't have an analog in the reference material i've seen.
But on the other hand, if you picked a certain single glowsword tank class, it very much plays into those references where it's mostly sword dependent with only the occasional use of powers. And one of that class' companions is also a robe wearing sword dependent character. If you're soloing with that class, your robed companion by your side feels like your apprentice of sorts, which also matches my images of the source material.
I suppose that's where the mmo part comes in since they wanted to diversify their class distinctions but it's not too far-fetched to rationalize there being a time when their kind was more abundant that there could be an order dedicated to honing the power side of their craft.
But i had an opposite reaction than yours in regards to CoX with one of my oldest main characters. I made an inv/ss tank that was an homage to a certain "S"omeone and i found it hard to rationalize that i could take on a whole army unscathed, but when i'm down to a single boss i kept getting hurt a lot.
I know it's just how the set was designed but still that drew me out of the illusion and onto game mechanics. Although this was when the game was new and pre-ED so when i say i took on an army (wink). It's a little better now with what i know though but still...every game has moments of rationalizing lore if you want to continue. Even with CoX, although people basically didn't have a direct reference to its lore in their minds, they do have many analogies to specific powers with known superheroes in media.
[FYI: My homage wasn't too blatant to be generic'd. That alt still has the original name/costume and is almost 8 years old.
]
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And if you're playing a robed laser-sword wielder specifically with the robed laser-sword wielding companion, you will often find that your gameplay very specifically matches a very explicit IP-originating scene.|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
But on the other hand, if you picked a certain single glowsword tank class, it very much plays into those references where it's mostly sword dependent with only the occasional use of powers. And one of that class' companions is also a robe wearing sword dependent character. If you're soloing with that class, your robed companion by your side feels like your apprentice of sorts, which also matches my images of the source material.
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Order 66.
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This isn't really my experience at all - I love playing Jedi and using lightsabers. I love playing any class in that game, really. Except maybe gunslingers.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Its extreme, but there is a kernel of truth in it I can't ignore: I find that trying to play Jedi as my mind's eye thinks of Jedi is almost the worst possible thing I can do. My counselor plays far better almost never touching her lightsaber, and leveraging companions tends to be just as important as whatever you're doing. I find when I stop thinking of it as a genre game and start thinking about it as a generic MMO, my performance gets a lot better.
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The point I was making is that argument was made about KOTOR when it was announced: "Using an era from the comic books is a mistake. Departing from the movies will kill it." Hence its runaway popularity.
The problem with this particular MMO isn't the time frame, I don't think, not on a global scale. It's that it borrows from design trends that are a few years old without doing much to streamline many of those trends.
I usually forget I'm playing an MMO on that other game, for what it's worth. It's largely a single-player experience for me. With chat features.
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I'll second what Bill said, but what really struck me about that other game as opposed to here was that I was sold on an 'epic' storyline that - at least through the first 28 levels - really wasn't. There have been really only a few times in recent gaming memory that have made me go 'holy cow' from a storytelling and gameplay standpoint:
- The entirety of Skies of Arcadia Legends
- One Good Spider
- The redside clone arc
- SSA 1.4 blueside
- The first 'blueside' dungeon in that galaxy far away
For the eighteen or so levels after that, I think I can sum up my experiences as feeling like I was on the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disneyland. After I got bored of that, I came back here and got more actual innovation just hanging around Ms. Liberty in Atlas Park for five minutes.
That's what makes us really unique: The creativity and community of our players. I've never ceased to be amazed at what we can come up with here in CoH.
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Which, as I said, is extreme. Departing from the source material won't kill a game. But it is true that the more you do it, the more people will notice flaws in the game. KOTOR was a good game, and being a good game even people unaware of the backstory were willing to *learn* the backstory for the game, or even *from* the game.|
Originally Posted by BellaStrega
The point I was making is that argument was made about KOTOR when it was announced: "Using an era from the comic books is a mistake. Departing from the movies will kill it." Hence its runaway popularity.
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You'll find anecdotes both ways, but I think the more recent MMO is struggling a lot more with this issue that KOTOR did.
Here, I think we tend, on average, to have the opposite problem. Here, people who want the superhero experience often tend to get it, while people expecting certain MMO conventions often fail to get them. I don't think that matches every single players experience, but I do believe it roughly matches the average experience.
I don't think its a coincidence that many returning players don't necessarily say that every other MMO they've played since leaving was bad and now they realize this game is the best: rather the most common statement I've personally heard was that this game is a nice refuge from other MMOs. I don't hear people say that about other MMOs in general. And its an odd statement to make in general, although I think its actually saying something particularly interesting about City of Heroes.
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Not really a coincidence that returning players say that, though i think it's a bit of a biased sample, but not unbelievable since CoX does have unique qualities. In contrast, i see many comments in various places where it touts the merits and unique qualities of the now defunct glowsword mmo. But that didn't quite help their overall population.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't think its a coincidence that many returning players don't necessarily say that every other MMO they've played since leaving was bad and now they realize this game is the best: rather the most common statement I've personally heard was that this game is a nice refuge from other MMOs. I don't hear people say that about other MMOs in general. And its an odd statement to make in general, although I think its actually saying something particularly interesting about City of Heroes.
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It's just a matter of magnitude, i suppose. Can't really know the number of player turnovers. Though it would be interesting to see numbers on how many and/or how long returnees stay.
But as much as some might scoff at the seemingly familiar qualities of all those other mmos, it is curious that those other games seem to have a lot more market share of the overall mmo gaming public.
And it's not just with a certain direct superheroic competitor, all mmos can potentially compete for each other's customers. Especially with F2P allowing people to jump games as they wish and occassionally sprinkling money around.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't think its a coincidence that many returning players don't necessarily say that every other MMO they've played since leaving was bad and now they realize this game is the best: rather the most common statement I've personally heard was that this game is a nice refuge from other MMOs. I don't hear people say that about other MMOs in general. And its an odd statement to make in general, although I think its actually saying something particularly interesting about City of Heroes.
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This has been my biggest obstacle to getting friends to join.
City of Heroes is too much of a sandbox. They complain there are too many choices, too many contacts, too many zones...they want a linear contact and level chain...so they go back to what they are trained to do.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
Star Wars the Old Republic has laser swords used to slay Jedi Knights on Korriban. You cannot get much better than that.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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In City I have a sword made of fire twice as long as any lightsaber which I use to lay waste to 10+ enemies at a time.|
Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
Star Wars the Old Republic has laser swords used to slay Jedi Knights on Korriban. You cannot get much better than that.
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I wouldn't object to a laser sword in City (god I want a Vanguard Titan sword) but I surely ain't complaining.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Mehhh, been there done that in the last mmo.|
Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei
Star Wars the Old Republic has laser swords used to slay Jedi Knights on Korriban. You cannot get much better than that.
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I like to solo a lot, but if an mmo is 90% solo all the time, (due to how horrible it is to try and organize teams on the fly) then why aren't I simply playing a single player star wars game?
As an aside, THAT was one of the larger problems with the first competitor in the superhero mmo genre for this game. For nearly 6 months, trying to form teams on the fly was like having a root canal done.
6 months is a looooong damn time.
Hopefully that new mmo with laser swords can improve on this aspect quickly.
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Now I'm going to have to save it for some weekend when the mods are at the beach.
... until I remembered I spent last weekend at a beach.
Shucks.
~Freitag
Kevin Callanan
Community Specialist
Paragon Studios