CoH: Ahead of Its Time

How did City of Heroes stay around for 8 years? By being ahead of the game. It was, and still is, one the most advanced MMOs on the market, in terms of features. No game has improved as much as CoH has over the last 8 years. A short of the game's huge advancements:

1. A real character creator. Something the majority of MMOs STILL lack. And a place for a biography to go with it. Those few paragraphs and the costumes add so much to player-character interaction it is hard to state in words.

2. A chat system that is truly global. For some reason, the global chat system has never caught on in other MMOs, but it is truly revolutionary. Simply put, it turns the game into a social network.

3. The ability to respec your character nearly completely, without a huge cost. And because the abilities are so varied, it is easily possible for two characters with the same AT, primary, and secondary to be have completely different playstyles.

4. Sidekicking. Oh sidekicking, I might miss you most of all. How can people play other MMOs when even a minor level difference makes playing with friends impossible?

And so many more things that are still hardly found in most MMOs. Not even including the best community and developers in the business. Maybe 5-10 years from now some game will have the features this game had back in 2004.

On points 1, 2, and 4, it's still ahead of its time. So many things about CoH were designed to be user-friendly that my mind boggles when I think that it could be done any other way.

I gotta say considering how much this game mastered the chat system, it truly baffles me how much better it is than any other MMO I've played. Same games it's like night and day. And I'm not talking about one of those things where I don't like it because it's different, but because it simply doesn't work as well in other games. It really amazes me that it's 2012 and games still just don't get it down.

And I agree with the rest of your points, but just wanted to speak my piece on that particular point.

Gonna miss this!!!

I've gone through a ton of MMO's in the last 2 days.

D&D Online: Sorry, try again.
Champions: Sorry, try again.
DC Universe Online: Sorry, try again
Rift: Close, but try again
Guild Wars: Meh. Another fantasy game
The Secret World: Closer, at least I can play dressup, but I can't fly.
Star Trek Online: Meh
Fallen Earth: Ugh
Everquest 2: Meh

There's just something about City of Heroes that the others are missing.

Maybe it's the costume creator. Maybe it's the lack of landmarks on the outdoor maps. Maybe it's the Generic Fantasy Simulator 398a.

I don't know, maybe I'll feel different later, but right now?

Meh.

Back to City I go.

Till the lights go out, and the Nothing devours us all.

Skrunchie will have her sock-monkey.

Sidekicking and the difficulty settings are the two big ones for me. I cannot stand not being able to adjust the difficulty to be reasonably challenging. Also, lack of sidekicking just stops you from playing with other people, which is terrible. There is no way I am going to any MMO that lacks those two features.

Two words.

Architect Entertainment.

I still can't believe no other game ever jumped on the player-created content bandwagon that we started with AE.

Or sidekicking, why has no other game embraced the concept of being able to play with your friends regardless of level difference? It seems like such a basic QoL thing to us here, but no one else has it. Why?

A few other games have sidekicking or something like it, but not nearly enough.

And... yeah, after being exposed to the CoH method of doing things, the design decisions in most games seem just bafflingly bad.