Dear mods: NOW can we talk about other games?

**** it. Tonight, my BAC is going to be, "Irish".

I can be found, after Nov 30th, 2012, on The Secret World and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Alas, neither of those games have global chat channels or global handles to use to keep in touch regardless what character one is on.

I played Champions Online and DC Universe Online for a time but kept with COH because it was the better MMO. CO and DCUO are very, very good MAMO's (Massive Action Multiplayer Online) games. They are also good super hero games. Both have grown well over their lifetime so far. The Perfect World International is unlikely to pull the plug on CO for at least a year or two. ESPECIALLY with COH going away. SOE rarely kills off a game unless the cost of the IP outweighs the income (Matrix) or they lose the IP (Star Wars Galaxies). You want an example: Vanguard. I think the fact they Own the IP means their costs are low. So as long as Warner and SOE are getting along and Warner doesn't decide to up the cost of the IP or stop footing part of the bill, SOE will keep it going. Especially due to the Console side being so unique.

COH moving out of the picture may or may not change the equation. I know, for me, it will be back to MMO of the year and moving around from one to another again. Only COH held my attention during it's whole existance. No other MMO has done that.

That's good to hear about how DCUO is doing.

Well I've decided to give TSW a try, I'm over on the Grim server desi-nova over there.

One note about TSW - "servers" there don't mean much. You can talk and group across servers. The one thing you can't do is go to the instanced PvP areas across servers, those are server specific.

Going to a completely different genre of game does not appeal to me. It's like sitting down to watch the Avengers again but someone puts in Lord of the Rings instead, sure I love Lord of the Rings, but damn it I want to see a Super Hero movie, same here, damnit I want to play a super hero game.

DCUO is good, music is good, visuals are fantastic, and the missions are fun. Players? meh. Loot system? meh? Costume choices? meh. Mark Hammill's joker voice? Like nails on a ******* chalkboard.

Champions, if you can get over the bad character models and don't mind a game where they dollar you to death.

Thankfully DCUO still hasn't gone nutso with their market so far, like Champions and this game.

I'm going to run a gadgeteer type character on both games to see which one I end up liking the most.

To give some more info about The Secret World (which I'm apparently going to have much more time to play after Nov 30)...

The character creator is somewhat limited. A few more options than WoW, nowhere near as many as CoH. No body sliders, so all toons have the same build. (We hear that may change in the future, but nothing definite yet.) Once you're in the game, there is a wide variety of clothing available, some for in-game money, some as achievement awards, and some for real dough in the game shop. You can eventually make a unique look for yourself through these methods.

The need for alts is limited. You can eventually get all skills/abilities on one toon, so the need for alts is minimal. If you want to see the story from a Templar's perspective instead of an Illuminati's, that may be a reason for an alt, but there are only a handful of society-only missions, most of the game will be the same regardless of faction.

There are no 'quest hubs.' In fact, you're limited in the number of active quests you can have at once. One 'main' quest (story, investigation, or sabotage), one 'zone' quest (like an arc), and three 'side' quests (usually given by found objects and such). So, you won't be grabbing five or six quests from conveniently-placed NPCs and turning them all in at once. This is designed to make you explore, find those out-of-the-way mission-granting objects (and lore pieces too), and take the time to enjoy the story created by the missions instead of rushing for XP.

'Main' and 'arc' quests (my terms, by the way) have voice-acted intro cut scenes , but your toon has no voice and never says anything. The designers manage to make this work with the scripts so it doesn't seem weird. I'd say it's for the best, so you can imagine whatever voice you like for yourself, while the acting for the NPCs makes them feel more alive.

Riley is correct, it's easy to get 30 missions done in 3 days (heck, even one). After 24 hrs, most missions are repeatable. I believe investigation missions are the only ones you can't repeat.

Some people have said the combat animations seem 'clunky.' This seems to stem from the fact that animations don't root you in TSW. While this is great for fast-paced combat, visually, it means your upper body is moving in combat animations while your lower body is running/jumping, and it winds up looking a bit odd, since most players are used to seeing bodies move a bit more realistically. If you can accept that, you'll be fine. It really does add a nice dimension to the combat, as moving is as much of your mitigation as any skill you've unlocked.

PvP is completely optional, but it does have its benefits. Aside from specific gear, success in the arena/battlefield creates buffs for your faction. When you log in, you'll see a buff icon above your ability bar, and mousing over it will tell you which battlefield zones your faction is currently controlling, and what buffs they give. So even if you never set foot in a PvP area, you'll get something from your factionmates PvPing.

Lastly for now, the thing I hate the most about TSW. By design, the items from the in-game shops and the cash shop are per-toon only. So, if you buy a really cool trench coat on, say, your Templar toon, you will not be able to use the same coat on your Dragon toon, unless you buy it again. Doesn't matter if it's in-game Pax or real money, items are per toon.

Well, after all that, what do I like about the game? A lot, actually. The writing is some of the best around. The NPCs are fully realized, and very memorable. Also, if you're a Star Trek fan, you may recognize a few voice actors. The investigation missions are some of the best puzzles I've had the pleasure of struggling through. There's a reason the game has a built-in web browser. The leveling experience is great; as you progress, you gain skill points faster, not slower. The diversity of the skill wheel, and the fact that you can eventually unlock all skills, means that you can fill any role necessary, and change on the fly. Need to tank? Switch out your claws and blood book for a hammer and a chaos totem. A monster resistant to your penetration attacks? Switch out to your affliction build and DoT it to death.

I guess I've scared people enough. If you're still interested, I can try to answer questions.

Has anyone been following the development of the next SimCity game? The SimCity franchise is special to me, because it's what got me into gaming. SimCity Societies was a huge disappointment, so when I heard about this one I was excited, at first. Now, I'm not so sure about it.

I have a few concerns, but the main one is that there's not going to be a god-mode terrain editor. One of the things I loved about SC2k, 3k, and 4 was that I could shape the land I wanted to build my city on. The land was just as much a part of the city's character as the roads and houses. Plus, I could use it to make things as easy or as hard as I wanted (ever try managing a medium to large urban community on three small islands? it ain't easy). So there being no terraforming function is extremely disappointing. I think I understand why it wasn't added. The devs of SimCity are touting the online multiplayer aspect of it a lot, and I can see where having the ability to shape the land would potentially screw things up along shared borders. But they're still doing a single-player mode, so I don't see why they couldn't include a terrain editor in that.

I'll probably be waiting for the reviews to come out before I buy it. I really do want it to be good, or at the very least better than Cities XL (which has it's good bits, but isn't as good as SC4). I hope it's at least successful enough to keep the franchise alive.

The Secret World sounds really interesting, but no other MMO has taken root in my interests yet. I may just go back to being a full-time console gamer.

I've got so spoiled by CoH. Are there even any other MMOs out there that even have all or even most of of:

• Level syncing, up and down (I think FFXI, does, but...)
• Ability to do most content either teamed or solo (without making the solo option stupidly tedious)
• Build flexibility (what if I don't want to make a cookie cutter FOTM?)
• Team flexibility (not everyone likes the tank/heal/DPS trinity, especially when you have to spend an hour searching for whichever is missing)

Rift and TSW both definitely have a fair amount of room for role experimentation.

Virtually nothing is as forgiving mechanically as CoH is. On the other hand, that doesn't mean you're stuck with exactly one combination of roles that can ever work.

Rift has mentoring-down, but not sidekicking-up. TSW doesn't really, but doesn't need it much for mechanical reasons.

What I like about it, personally, is the INSANE flexibility for soloing. My main running-around build on rogue is 32 riftstalker, 12 bard, 22 assassin, and it's LOVELY for basically everything I want to do -- exploring, artifacting, invasions, etc.

If anybody is looking for a new home, Unleashed is welcoming refugees. We'd be happy to provide a place where you can talk about the game we all loved, and hang out with fellow players.

That's Unleashed at philotix dot net.

I'm enjoying TSW. It's quite a different experience, especially with the Investigation quests that require detective work within and outside of the game. Very story driven, and the game is quite beautiful if you have a pretty good machine to run it. Other than that, there aren't many MMOs that appeal to me right now. I thought SWTOR was rather dull and uninspired, and right now I just can't see myself giving money to NCSoft for GW2 after what they did to Paragon and the CoH community.

For the record, I -believe- if you register with the TSW site, you can download and play the game for 3 days.

"There's villainy ... and then there's supervillainy. The difference is performance."
-Doc_Reverend

The MMO I'm currently playing most of is Age of Conan. This has turned into a fairly pleasant and polished MMO. It does have sidekicking; unfortunately its group content requires a trinity. Heraclea is there; unfortunately there are no globals.

I enjoyed SWTOR and DCUO until their endgames.

I won't be happy until I find another game that lets me fill a dozen server with alts, and lets me bind multiple battlecries with name and other variables on the numpad for each.

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"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison