Tried looking elsewhere, there's nothing like CoH (or better)
By
Atlantea,
Posted on: 2012-09-10 07:32 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Fix'd that for you.
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Originally Posted by Atlantea
Actually what you REALLY want for her is from The Princess Bride.
"To the Pain". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4m4lnjxkY |
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I'm pretty sure that if I go running through the streets disemboweling people I consider "bad," I won't be applauded for it in real life.
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Originally Posted by Lulipop
Yes there is.
Real life. 20x better (as long as you do it right) |
Be well, people of CoH.
What the hell are you doing in this thread, anyway? Back under the bridge Lulipop!
POSTS SIGN: DO NOT FEED THE TROLL
Carry on.
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I've gone back to Sim City 4.|
Originally Posted by Steelclaw
So... I'm letting my game obsession stay with Diablo 3 for now... and when I say obsessed... I mean obsessed... I bought it Saturday morning and beat Diablo the first time by Monday night...
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I hate it so much, that when my SG of about 5 years suddenly insisted on Ventrilo chat ONLY, I ended up leaving the group. I can perhaps understand if its a big raid or something, but people talking inanities in my ear for hours and hours is a thing I have to endure at work; I really dont want it in my gaming.| Atlantea: I for one, HATE voice comm. At least for my MMO experience. It ruins all immersion in a game. |
No matter how much I might like the people in question. Well, I ended up liking them less over this issue, but there you have it.
All this go to CO has my scratching my head. . . I downloaded it again, patched it again, made a new character again, and still cant get out of the tutorial. I HATE the graphics, my character looks like my 3 year old niece drew him, and the movement without a gampad is ridiculous, and why is it so hard to have a camera follow my characters movements?!?!?!?
DCUO? Looks so so pretty but playing it is BORING. SWTOR same thing. So pretty but my god if I have 20 minutes to play I want to play not just spend that time running across the landscape. WoW?!?! FORGET IT!
So guess this is the end of gaming for me. Oh well, have to grow up sometime, guess being close to 40 this is my time.
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Fiiiiine. I'll go back under my damn bridge.. =||
Originally Posted by Atlantea
What the hell are you doing in this thread, anyway? Back under the bridge Lulipop!
POSTS SIGN: DO NOT FEED THE TROLL Carry on. |
..
..It leaks tho.
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The first thing I did in CO was disable voice chat.|
Originally Posted by Bantar
Okay, time to be mean to the wonderful CoH community for a moment...
Typing!?! Come on, I've been gone a few years and you're still stuck in the stone age of online gaming?!? Mumble, TS, Ventrillo, sheesh folks even a private MSN channel or something. That's got to be the #1 negative to coming back to CoH--for the awesome community, there's no community! Grabbed my headset on Saturday night...that was a wasted effort, there was no voice. Did an entire TF, and there is maybe a whole 3 window of text the whole time. I might as well have been playing a 1P game with incredibly smart team AI's. Maybe everyone was talking to their SG's or other friends,that's understandable...then play with them. |
Vent or Teamspeak with friends is one thing, strangers yammering their inane babble in my ear while I'm trying to play a game is a "feature" I can live without.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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But that's the one and only thing I care about. It's the only reason City of Heroes was the first MMO to win me over as a subscriber. I wasn't worried about IO's or Incarnate content or playing as the handful of AT's still locked up, like Kheldians and Masterminds. I just wanted to support the studio that allowed me to create a character straight out of my imagination and go leaping, flying and fighting with powers that looked and even animated the way I wanted. And that's the one thing no other MMO even tries to do.|
Originally Posted by Sureshot_Liberty
I know this doesn't help, but to be fair, the free to play model for CO is more generous than the one for CoH. The only major restriction is on the ability to play freeform...
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I tried to create a character in Champions Online and didn't even get past the character creator: it was just too cumbersome, too bizarrely arbitrary in its behavior (pick a basic costume piece, then pick one of the options below it, you don't like it and... whoops, the basic option has now vanished, start over and try again!) and the archetypes, like most MMOs, pretty much imposed a very specific character concept on you. Maybe freeform powers would be different, but I'm not handing over money sight unseen to find out.
Then again, I suppose CO at least lets you write a bio. The problem I find in most MMO's is that you don't really get to create a character, you just dress up the character the game gave you. I've been playing The Secret World lately, and I like it, but my character's circumstances, background, social class, even knowledge about the game's setting prior to the game were entirely set by the opening cutscene, and they're pretty restrictive. It's the same as World of Warcraft, Aion or The Old Republic: you can pick a face and a name, but really, you're just Soldier #194284215 in the Great War and everyone treats you like it. I swear to God, if I have one more trainer in an MMO shout at me like a drill sergeant... I guess developers think that the story needs to address the fact that you're just one player among many, but I don't pay $15 a month for the pleasure of some NPC telling me how worthless I am.
The topic hit it on the head. It's not just a matter of City of Heroes doing it better than other MMO's, it's that it has an entirely different design philosophy than other MMO's and nobody else has followed in its footsteps (maybe Champions does to some extent, but again, not paying money to find out based on the teeth-pulling I went through just trying to make the costume builder cooperate). City of Heroes focuses entirely on building its world while letting your character have any relationship with that world you want. Every other MMO I've tried tells a story about a character that the developers created, and you're playing the role of that character. Which is fine, it's how most fiction works, but it's also what made City of Heroes different.
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."
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More of Jack's special brand of genius....tailoring the game to appease an anticipated console demographic, then scrapping the whole console idea & sticking PC gamers with the fallout.|
Originally Posted by Atlantea
Right up front I want to mention that there are both graphical and gameplay elements that make it very clear this was a game designed for a console gaming system first, and PC second.
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SMH.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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omg..it happened again...logged out whle typing...and somehow my alt-c doesn't have my post...maybe I hit alt-x....crap!!|
Originally Posted by Atlantea
The vast majority of MMO players still type and don't use voice comm.
I for one, HATE voice comm. At least for my MMO experience. It ruins all immersion in a game. And that's another nice thing about COH - the pacing of the game and combat is such that you can run an entire Task Force and never NEED voice comm. You can even run a Task Force or even a Mothership Raid IN CHARACTER. Some games you can't do that. You are forced to break immersion in the game in order to achieve certain goals. That's BAD DESIGN for an MMO. It might be just fine for a game like Team Fortress 2 (and I use it there) But for an MMO? It should always be OPTIONAL to your game experience. |
okay, in short:
1) MMOs are not RPGs. That might be how you and others decided to play, but do not equate the two absolutely. Immersion is nice, but hearing you speak in real life is not going to break that...a real superhero would still have a real voice. And hearing a guy for a girl...well nothing new there.
2) Voice or text, chat with those you are playing with, and play with those you are chatting with. (Did I get a song stuck in your head? hehehe....)
3) A game fully using the keyboard & mouse is not a bad thing when there are so many alternatives to communication out there. Seems Ludite-ish to me to insist on text.
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
I hate it so much, that when my SG of about 5 years suddenly insisted on Ventrilo chat ONLY, I ended up leaving the group. I can perhaps understand if its a big raid or something, but people talking inanities in my ear for hours and hours is a thing I have to endure at work; I really dont want it in my gaming.
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5) Inanities? I'm not even 100% sure what that's supposed to mean. And is the source of the problem voice chat or your job? Please elaborate.
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Played Issue #1 through Issue #12. Occasional play for a couple more issues, then gone.
Back now till the end. One 50: Ella Tundra, Earth/Ice Tank.
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point one: use google. Being informed is always one click away.|
Originally Posted by Bantar
4) Did they not do the same thing in text? This is just part of the hunt for the right group for you.
5) Inanities? I'm not even 100% sure what that's supposed to mean. And is the source of the problem voice chat or your job? Please elaborate. |
point two: there is a vast difference between text and the spoken word. In the context of a game, I can ignore any volume of text without distraction. Someone or several someones yapping in my ear is an entirely different proposition.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Plus it can be immersion breaking; City of Catgirls vs Voices of Gilbert Godfrey.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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No they did not: if you were not on Vent, you did that TF or whatever in a total vacuum of information. NICE.| 4) Did they not do the same thing in text? This is just part of the hunt for the right group for you. |
Since I was there for years before the Ventrilo crowd showed up, IMO that wasn't the right group for THEM, perhaps. However the group is basically dead at this time anyways - I was a foundation member, and one of the most active members [see: prestige mule].
*shrug*
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| 5) Inanities? I'm not even 100% sure what that's supposed to mean. And is the source of the problem voice chat or your job? Please elaborate. |
This is what 99% of the Ventrilo chat i have ever heard was. I hear a metric crapton of vapid, pointless and shallow yammering away at work - I'd just as soon not have it in my ear for an entire ITF, or whatever. Ventrilo places social pressure on those connected, which I would sooner avoid.
Plus i think its a sign of a good player, if you can play and type at the same time.
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Originally Posted by Sparkly Soldier
But that's the one and only thing I care about. It's the only reason City of Heroes was the first MMO to win me over as a subscriber. I wasn't worried about IO's or Incarnate content or playing as the handful of AT's still locked up, like Kheldians and Masterminds. I just wanted to support the studio that allowed me to create a character straight out of my imagination and go leaping, flying and fighting with powers that looked and even animated the way I wanted. And that's the one thing no other MMO even tries to do.
I tried to create a character in Champions Online and didn't even get past the character creator: it was just too cumbersome, too bizarrely arbitrary in its behavior (pick a basic costume piece, then pick one of the options below it, you don't like it and... whoops, the basic option has now vanished, start over and try again!) and the archetypes, like most MMOs, pretty much imposed a very specific character concept on you. Maybe freeform powers would be different, but I'm not handing over money sight unseen to find out. |
I completely understand. I like Champions and DCUO both. But they were always ALTERNATIVES to COH to play when I wanted a change of pace.
THere is however a VERY IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR STARTING GAME EXPERIENCE IN CO.
(And yes - it's important enough to "yell" in all caps to draw your attention)
The character creation engine is intentionally HOBBLED on your first character into and through the tutorial. The VAST MAJORITY of the costume choices available are locked down and menued in the way that you describe.
My advice, should you want to try again:
DON'T try and recreate one of your characters from COH first thing out of the gate in CO. Instead, choose one of the ATs they give you and stick with the costume they give you and run that character through the tutorial.
When you exit (level 6-7 likely) STOP THE GAME. Shut it down. REBOOT IT.
Come back, DELETE your test character, and start again, and the options will have been unlocked for you except for the pieces they've put behind pay and unlock walls, which still means that the character creator is opened up by an order of magnitude and is much more open to use.
It wasn't like this at launch. I HATE this change for CO because it is doing EXACTLY this sort of thing to new players - making them not want to play the game.
The game is MUCH better than your initial experience. Take my advice, try it again. Then make your decision.
And know that I still agree with you that it is not a replacement for City of Heroes. Nothing ever will be. But if all else fails and the worst happens. It's probably the best option we'll have available. That's why I'm working to try and help people make these transitions when this subject comes up.
I hope this helps you.
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Yep. It's one thing to tout the increased efficiency of voice chat for the purpose of coordinating a team or whatever.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
point two: there is a vast difference between text and the spoken word. In the context of a game, I can ignore any volume of text without distraction. Someone or several someones yapping in my ear is an entirely different proposition.
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But part of the reason that voice chat is more efficient is that it's harder to ignore. Personally, I like voice chat occasionally and/or in the right company, but not when I'm just pugging with random gamers. No matter how efficient voice chat is, you can't convince people to like it. Their preference against voice is perfectly legitimate.
As for whether a native voice feature in a game is a good or bad thing? I'm on the fence. It seemed almost necessary in DDO, because (at the time I played, anyway) pretty much all of DDO's content was for groups, and many of DDO's dungeons had quirks that would have been difficult to explain to newcomers in text. Asking every person you grouped with, in DDO, to install Ventrillo and sign up for your personal server would have been impractical.
In a game like CO, where most of the content is soloable and (for me at least) the most compelling part of the game is messing around with different self-sufficient character builds? Native voice chat almost seems like a disadvantage, or at best a curious use of development resources.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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Huh! That's really odd, but I'll give it a try later (I'd heard something about pieces being locked by level 10, but figured they'd only be unlocked per character rather than account). One short-lived but exciting pre-custom hero coming right up!
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Originally Posted by Atlantea
I completely understand. I like Champions and DCUO both. But they were always ALTERNATIVES to COH to play when I wanted a change of pace.
THere is however a VERY IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR STARTING GAME EXPERIENCE IN CO. (And yes - it's important enough to "yell" in all caps to draw your attention) The character creation engine is intentionally HOBBLED on your first character into and through the tutorial. The VAST MAJORITY of the costume choices available are locked down and menued in the way that you describe. My advice, should you want to try again: DON'T try and recreate one of your characters from COH first thing out of the gate in CO. Instead, choose one of the ATs they give you and stick with the costume they give you and run that character through the tutorial. When you exit (level 6-7 likely) STOP THE GAME. Shut it down. REBOOT IT. Come back, DELETE your test character, and start again, and the options will have been unlocked for you except for the pieces they've put behind pay and unlock walls, which still means that the character creator is opened up by an order of magnitude and is much more open to use. It wasn't like this at launch. I HATE this change for CO because it is doing EXACTLY this sort of thing to new players - making them not want to play the game. The game is MUCH better than your initial experience. Take my advice, try it again. Then make your decision. And know that I still agree with you that it is not a replacement for City of Heroes. Nothing ever will be. But if all else fails and the worst happens. It's probably the best option we'll have available. That's why I'm working to try and help people make these transitions when this subject comes up. I hope this helps you. |
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."
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Fixed.
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
Champions Online: The quality of lacking substance. Vapid. Pointless. Shallow.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Fix't.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
F
 i xe d.   |
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Good Lord, why would they do something like that. |
Originally Posted by Atlantea
I completely understand. I like Champions and DCUO both. But they were always ALTERNATIVES to COH to play when I wanted a change of pace.
THere is however a VERY IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR STARTING GAME EXPERIENCE IN CO. (And yes - it's important enough to "yell" in all caps to draw your attention) The character creation engine is intentionally HOBBLED on your first character into and through the tutorial. The VAST MAJORITY of the costume choices available are locked down and menued in the way that you describe. My advice, should you want to try again: DON'T try and recreate one of your characters from COH first thing out of the gate in CO. Instead, choose one of the ATs they give you and stick with the costume they give you and run that character through the tutorial. When you exit (level 6-7 likely) STOP THE GAME. Shut it down. REBOOT IT. Come back, DELETE your test character, and start again, and the options will have been unlocked for you except for the pieces they've put behind pay and unlock walls, which still means that the character creator is opened up by an order of magnitude and is much more open to use. It wasn't like this at launch. I HATE this change for CO because it is doing EXACTLY this sort of thing to new players - making them not want to play the game. The game is MUCH better than your initial experience. Take my advice, try it again. Then make your decision. And know that I still agree with you that it is not a replacement for City of Heroes. Nothing ever will be. But if all else fails and the worst happens. It's probably the best option we'll have available. That's why I'm working to try and help people make these transitions when this subject comes up. I hope this helps you. |
Thanks for the head's-up, I am downloading this game as I type, and I so desperately want this to be something that doesn't immediately make me want to log out in disgust, like I did the 1st time I tried it. it'll never be CoX, but something at least playable would be.... nice.
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I'll give CO another go if and when the CoH servers are dead and buried.|
Originally Posted by Atlantea
I completely understand. I like Champions and DCUO both. But they were always ALTERNATIVES to COH to play when I wanted a change of pace.
THere is however a VERY IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR STARTING GAME EXPERIENCE IN CO. (And yes - it's important enough to "yell" in all caps to draw your attention) The character creation engine is intentionally HOBBLED on your first character into and through the tutorial. The VAST MAJORITY of the costume choices available are locked down and menued in the way that you describe. My advice, should you want to try again: DON'T try and recreate one of your characters from COH first thing out of the gate in CO. Instead, choose one of the ATs they give you and stick with the costume they give you and run that character through the tutorial. When you exit (level 6-7 likely) STOP THE GAME. Shut it down. REBOOT IT. Come back, DELETE your test character, and start again, and the options will have been unlocked for you except for the pieces they've put behind pay and unlock walls, which still means that the character creator is opened up by an order of magnitude and is much more open to use. It wasn't like this at launch. I HATE this change for CO because it is doing EXACTLY this sort of thing to new players - making them not want to play the game. The game is MUCH better than your initial experience. Take my advice, try it again. Then make your decision. And know that I still agree with you that it is not a replacement for City of Heroes. Nothing ever will be. But if all else fails and the worst happens. It's probably the best option we'll have available. That's why I'm working to try and help people make these transitions when this subject comes up. I hope this helps you. |
Thank you.
The problem with voice chat is that there are too many people who can't tolerate silence. So they have to fill it, and fill it, and fill it with inane garbage.
I'm another one of the 'not an MMO person' crowd. I struggled mightily when my friends tried to talk me into playing. To me, MMOs were the gathering places of obnoxious 14 year olds whose primary joy in life was making other people miserable. I had no desire to step foot in one. My now duo partner finally managed to persuade me by pointing out that the only PvP (at the time) was in the new Arenas, which meant I couldn't get ganked every ten feet, and if I would give it a try she would buy the game for me.
I tried it, and I'm still here. I don't want to go anywhere else. Where else is there to go to? I'm not here for superheroes per se. I'm not here for the online environment in general. I'm here because of the community and the friends I've made here. They won't be in any other game.
"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."
I've found myself playing Champions Online all weekend, and really enjoying it.
The archetype system they force you into in free-to-play is very restrictive, and intentionally so.
Or you can subscribe for 15 bucks for a month and get a greater degree of customisation than City of Heroes offered. If you want a tanky character with a gun for flavour, go for it, it's yours. My melee brawler is about to pick up bolas for a ranged hold. I could use temporary powers for this in CoX sometimes. Honestly I prefer the Champions system here.
It won't be for everyone, sure, but writing the game off because you can't choose your own powers would be like writing CoX off after just playing Death From Below.
Aw, you guys have already spelled out most of the reasons I, too, do not enjoy voice chat.
The only thing I didn't see mentioned is that some of us don't want to make that much noise while playing.
Oh, I have my sound on and I can hear all of the sound effects and whatnot, but (especially with my booming voice) I don't want to be talking aloud while I am playing when other people are around sleeping (or just up to something else and don't deserve to listen to such things. Sound effects, video game sounds are vastly different to the human brain than conversations or, worse, HALF-conversations, if I were wearing headphones instead).
I think that's another aspect of appealing to a wider audience. People with babies, spouses, children, parents that they don't want to disturb with "SUPERJIMMY... THE MOB TO THE LEFT!! TO THE LEFT!! NOOOOOO!!!!!" and a whole bunch of other voices coming through the speakers, hehe.
Not that most other mmorpgs rely on voice chat at all anyway.
Oh dear, I left the rpg in mmo! I like it there.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
If you do decide to give it another try, then this forum is a good resource for free players: http://champions-online.proboards.com/index.cgi
It may be worth it to research the archetypes offered and if none of the free archetypes suit you, see if any of the paid archetypes are worthwhile. Otherwise, the freeform slot is an option, but I wouldn't drop fifty bucks on it on the off chance you'll warm up to the game.
Content-wise, the best content is in the comic series. They've made those free for everyone.
All that said, it's not really the same experience you get from CoH. It took me a while to warm up to it (especially the character art style), but taken for what it is, it's fun to pop in and out of from time to time. If you go the subscription route, the paid time cards on Amazon are the cheapest option.
Solely on the basis of the "I'm a superhero" rush you get from playing your character, it's OK. It won't match that first time experience in CoH simply because that was the firs time you got that feeling. But it's OK on that account, IMO. (It may take a few levels to get to that feeling, but then so did CoH back at release.)