f13.net

Since I'm still waiting for Amazon to ship my copy, just thought I'd ask how people found the first two weeks of launch.

I'm getting some mixed messages from reading threads on this topic. Some say CoH has had the best launch of any mmog ever; others are full of complaints about frequent drop-outs and bugs.

What opinions do you guys have about the CoH launch?

Best launch I've seen so far. Better than DAoC's in about every way. The only significant bug so far is the borked Task Force missions. Fatal bug there.

Mapserver drops aren't common for me. Even with Victory under a heavy load, it rarely happens. I think this is more of connection issue than anything with CoH.

My only personal concern is the devs seem to be inclined to stealth nerf. The gutting of Wet Ice being a case in point. Not much in their notes, but it's not what it was when the game went live. Still, if that's the only complaint I have, it's miles ahead of any other MMRPG I've ever played.

I didn't have any issues at all - logged in first attempt on pre-launch-launch-day, one or two map server disconnects since then - but nothing dramatic.

It was the launch by which all other launches shall be judged. Seriously though, any game that can't do as well as this one in the future won't get my money. Unless it's the second coming of baby jesus.

I was one of the few who had the disconnect problem.  I bypassed my router (after downloading and trying new drivers, firmware, etc. with no luck) and the problem went away.  

I plan to reconnect my router in the near future to see if the problem still exists.

Launch was otherwise flawless.

How quickly we forget.

"Better than DAoC's in about every way" isn't exactly true.  On the first day of the the three day pre-launch there was a few hours of downtime as the login servers proved inadequette to the tak.

If you're counting on launch day, there was some nasty latency with the sure volume of players in the Galaxy Park 1 and Atlas City 1 instances, with an occational disconnect.

However, this is all pretty forgivable as things were more or less back to full playability within a day or two after release.

So, I'd say DAOC had a more flawless launch than CoH, but only very slightly compared to games such as Anarchy Online.

I think I said this in the other launch day thread. But who cares about how flawlessly DAoC launched.  The game was a heaping pile of boring pig snot at release.  Two of the 3 realms were underdeveloped, one horribly so (Hibernia).  There were broken quests all over the place.  The balance was a complete joke.  And there was an entire class that was added ONE FUCKING WEEK BEFORE FINAL.  

Sure, they were technically solid but I wouldn't have released the game in the condition that they did.  A boring heap of crap that's technically solid* is still a boring heap of crap.

CoH is the only game I've seen launch where the first thoughts in my brain weren't "god, this thing needed another 6 months".

*Technically solid meaning falling through the world in several spots for the first month. One time getting stuck for 3 hours before a CSR would move me.

I"ve had some rubberbanding, but it's more in the nuisance character than a serious flaw.

My comments about DAoC stand. The game was technically very good. However, it was one mass of placeholder NPCs and incomplete content. Not just a little bit, either. Whole dungeons vital to character advancement were unitemized. Additionally, it has far more networking hassles than CoH. I remember my first adventure into the fronties was basically a slideshow. Not fun.

On the other hand, CoH has been nothing but fun, aside from the hasten and wet ice thing. Again, even this shrinks into insignificance compared to the weekly travails of a certain SOE game that shall remain nameless...

Chalk me up as "best mmorpg launch i've been involved in".  

Technically, I can thing of 1 days with lag and rubberbaning, but they were doing network maintance that day and by prime time all was well.  No billing, login or other general technical problems to speak of.  Only 2-3 mapserver disco's in the first day maybe once total since.  Only had 1 mission I couldn't finish b/c the last mob was stuck in a wall, so just came back and did it after it respawned and it was fine.

From a gameplay standpoint, most fun from level 1 by a longshot.  Granted I'm not a hardcore players, but I am still finding myself advancing almost by accident at lvl 16 just from playing.  And the pace of new stuff seems quite nice.  A new power every even level, new slots every odd and regular injections of other new stuff like story arcs, souveniers, titles, new foe groups, zones, maps and inspiration slots are just icing.  The first mission where I got a high tech lab map was fun in and of iteself (course, I was hunting ninja's and spirits in the high tech lab but what the hell).

I have to say, the mission path for advancement alleviates so much of the grind for me it isn't even funny.  I've had one brief spot for half of level 14 where my only mission was in Faultline and my other contacts wanted me to be 15.  Trying to solo hunt in there was a pita but it was self inflicted.  But being able to take a half hour before work or during my lunch and complete a misison is wonderful for us time starved gamers.

There just so many little things which keep the game flowing and active and fun.  Sidekicking, teleport friend, flying, the ability to solo OR group and meet appropriate challenges.  I don't remember who said it this weekend but someone made a toungue in cheek gripe that they missed the post fight downtime of DAoC so they could actually chat with their team while waiting to play again.

What can I say, me like muchly.

Xilren

Eh?

Took like 7 hours for me to enter my billing information the first day the DAOC servers went live.  The login servers for COH on the pre-release launch were down for almost 1 hour.

No hiccup on offical launch day.

COH gets my vote for best launch ever....

Only 35 minutes on launch day to get in, then over 6 hours of perfect superhero bliss.  CoH gets my vote as best ever.

BTW, I was there for launch day for AC1, AO and DAOC.

I actually have had absolutly no problems from launch on to today. I have yet to get a mapserver disconnect since day one, well in beta but that was to be expected.

BEST MMOG LAUNCH EVAR!@!1!!

I can say that with no reservations or doubts whatsoever. You cannot compare DAoC, IMO, because a lot of DAoC's content was totally incomplete, including entire classes and dungeons. Everything you'll be able to access in CoH will be complete. I've had a total of 4 disconnects since launch, two in one night. Very little rubberbanding. The worst bug I've encountered was the fuckup with the task force missions, and I knew that was bugged when I went into it, so I was prepared. Billing was so easy, painless and quick I thought I was signing up for raffle or something.

CoH's client and server stability have both set new high standards for a MMOG release.  The only marks against them at all: a slight delay in bringing the servers up on pre-release opening day, poor planning around the whole "locking pre-purchase accounts out on release day" and "surprise, we are selling CD-KEYs online" thing, and the unfortunate task force mission bugs.  Everything else has been impeccable.  No-one has even come close to this level before.