Champions Online: The No-NDA Merged Edition

[Montague]

I'd downloaded the client from FP yesterday afternoon and moved the Hoggs files and it kept timing out last night. Went to bed and restarted the patcher this morning and it patched up with no problems and I was able to play. So whatever patcher problems they had seem to be fixed for now.

[Threash]

So what's the proper course now for downloading this game with all the different versions?

I'm still using the original file i downloaded from fp and it finally patched and run fine.

[jason]

I disagree completely.  Open beta in MMOGS is now  a marketing tool, not a testing tool.

That's got nothing to do with the fact that trying to emulate server load with bots is grade AAA stupid.

Depends on what is being tested... server load?  Yeah, bots would be stupid... stress testing instance performance, spawning/despawning of instances... scripted clients could be useful, especially since getting people playing their free MMO instead of actually beta testing to do what you want and actually test things can be a giant pain in the ass.

[Modern Angel]

You can make instances and stress instance performance with a slash command or line of code from the server caretakers. There is literally no more stupid way to test anything than using bots.

[eldaec]

There is literally no more stupid way to test anything than using bots.

Don't know about that.

It's a great way to test the bots...

[Threash]

Well at least its decently fun to play.

[Ozzu]

That sums it up.  I don't know why I'd play this over CoX, not that I've played CoX for any length. 

Champo is the first game to actually induce a headache from it's graphics.  The cel shading looks... off.  It also hitches from the GPU when turned up high.  I turned it down to low but now it looks like dogshit. 

Unimpressed. 

Man, the graphics give me a headache too. The graphics just pierce my retinas and make me not wanna play. However, even ignoring the graphics, I was bored 20 minutes in. That's a bad sign.

[Koyasha]

Well the combat with a controller feels entirely wrong because it's not action-type combat although it's trying to pretend to be.  Nothing happens when I press buttons once, usually I have to pound the button three or four times to get it to do a damn thing, because it's fucking with targeting and bullshit like that.  Why they bothered to try to make the game "actiion-y" when they still saddled it with targeting and stuff I have no idea.  There are so many good console action games that they could take lessons from in controls if they were trying to make it an action-MMO.  And if they weren't, they shouldn't try to make it sorta kinda feel like one, because at least from my perspective all that does is frustrate the player because it feels so horribly clunky to try to play it that way.

I doubt DC will do better, but the MMO that makes targeting halfway smooth - or even better, removes it entirely except for long-range attacks that have a specific need to be targeted, like pouncing on an enemy or a homing attack - will get me interested enough to give them money, probably for quite a while.  Even combat like Fable or Fable II, which is rather clunky from console action-combat standards, would be a great move for an action MMOG combat system.

Without a proper action-combat system, I don't really see any reason to play this over City of Heroes.  The costume choices are, in my opinion, pretty limited and uninspired, I get invalid costume on some entire categories (like female monstrous chest won't work at all) and as limited as CoH content is, everything everyone else says tells me that the content here is even smaller.  Plus there's no villains.  If CoH didn't have years of head start and additional content and City of Villains out, then sure, Champions Online might look like a good choice.  But if I want to play a superhero game, I don't see any reason to pick CO over CoH.

[Signe]

I turned all the settings up to max and it looks fine.  Hopefully those costumes that are broken will be fixed before launch.  This feels a lot like CoH to me.  I just can't play CoH anymore because I've seen everything and know everything that's going to happen.  Still, the game is just okay so far.  I'm not even level 10 yet, though.

[Pennilenko]

If more than 5 people that hang out at these forums still play it 30 days after release I will pick it up and try it.

[Margalis]

(like female monstrous chest won't work at all)

 

[Draegan]

My eyes actually hurt as soon as I got out of the character creation. 

Fileplanet files lets you play immediately.

Character customization is pretty full.  There is an option at the time to get through all the different costume combos.  Took me a while.

The character control is ass.  Very slow.

[Signe]

Maybe that other superhero game that is allegedly coming out will be better.

Oh, and I think I turned off that comic book outline thingy, too.  Maybe that helped the look.

[Modern Angel]

It's growing on me now that I'm in. Now, is the stuff interesting me going to keep me going for an extended period? I have my doubts. Limited zones, replaying content over and over... that shit worries me. But it's sort of mindless beat em up fun. I could see getting a month out of this. I have some serious concerns about their patcher load bearing after yesterday, though; I see that as a terrible portent for release.

Turn off bloom. Their bloom is fucking ass. It made an immense difference in the squinting I was doing.

[ezrast]

Just finished the tutorial. Flare Bear@ezrast.

Turn off bloom. Their bloom is fucking ass. It made an immense difference in the squinting I was doing.

This was the first thing I was going to say. I am the biggest sucker there is for shiny glowy lighting effects but the bloom in this game is just ridiculous.

My first impressions pretty much echo the rest of the crowd's here. It doesn't immediately turn me off but I would never slog through this solo - a regular group or a great community might make it worthwhile. The interface in general is just too clunky to put up with. There's a delay between pressing W and moving forward; the camera won't stop swinging around randomly to keep my target in view; targeting small mobs is a pain in the ass; the comics-y font used everywhere in the game is terrible. Immersion-breaking stuff that won't ever let me forget I'm playing a game.

edit: also, no apparent effort to make sure capes work properly. My furry ass clips through the thing every time I run. It bothers me.

[Modern Angel]

But the cape animations are pretty good.

God that bloom. I was squinting because the yellow star on The Red Scare's cape was hurting my eyes. I was thinking maybe brightness but that just didn't make sense because it was at default. Then I figured out it was their horrible bloom and that seriously made it like a different game.

[Ghambit]

Ummm, how is it that a game with only 30 people/shard is considered an MMO?  I mean, for god's sakes they instance the stupidest little things.
Anyways, I got in today and promptly made a pretty good rendition of Sho'Nuff from "The Last Dragon."  I must say, the chargen is the bread and butter (as everyone knows).  Once I figured out that the top tab basically gives you a whole 'nuther category of items to choose from - I was in heaven.  You can just about make anything you can thnk of.

The face/body sliders are pretty crappy though... You really dont have that much leeway in those regards, but given the cell-shading it's probably a good thing.
I found beginning combat in games like WoW and AoC more compelling than this game.  I mean really, this is supers combat - but it doesnt feel very Super.  From lvl 1-5 you basically have 2 abilities (for melee it's a punch and a kick) and that's pretty much the entire strat. behind the game for a while...  get to the powerhouse and add a travel power and something else (hopefully a ranged attack).  And that's it... ""   If the combat was more visceral it wouldnt be such a problem, but it's standard DIKU (like, real standard) - so, it really sux ass.  Hopefully it grows on you.

Does the skill system speed up and/or become more interesting down the road?  I would assume so, but it'd be nice if they gave us a few more things to do in the beginning besides spam 1 button and just stand and watch.

[Margalis]

People need to post pics of their chars, that's the best part of these superhero games.

[ezrast]

For some reason whenever I take a screenshot it ends up like this:
The lighting in-game is just fine but screenshots turn me into a silhouette for some reason.
Fortunately, I can help with that a bit by lighting myself on fire.
This is with all settings maxed except for bloom and outlining.

[Signe]

Captain Furry!

[ezrast]

I was a little disappointed with the overall fur level, actually. There's no cohesive set of "hairy" textures (note the bear bare hands in the last pic) and there was no ursine head so I had to go with a human one. But it's a throwaway character anyway and I like the name Flare Bear enough that I had to roll with it.

[fuser]

Someone make G. Gordon Liddy for me. Just so I know it exists.

Quick job, cannot make the moustache bigger nor can I find an american flag to pose against quick enough. The rocket on his back hopefully will send him to the moon.




Btw, I'm pissed off there is no hats selection! I wanted a freaking top hat for my mad pierrot le fou

[Modern Angel]

There is. In chargen you'll notice a dropdown menu up top, right below the costume section selector.

[fuser]

In chargen you'll notice a dropdown menu up top, right below the costume section selector.

[UnSub]

the camera won't stop swinging around randomly to keep my target in view

You can turn that off, I think. There are lots of ways to adjust the controls / appearance but it isn't well communicated.

[Kageru]

A lot of character pieces vanished during beta so they could be used as exclusive bonuses or possibly in-store items. I notice the micro-transactions tab is still broken so I guess they don't want to say what they're going to offer on that just yet.

In most cases you'll probably keep using the powers you have at level at level 40. For example playing with the force set there's only one end builder, single target, PBAoE and ranged AoE so you'll probably be using those for the entire game. Annoyingly there's not actually enough useful powers in force for me to meet the requirements to get higher level skills without picking up trash  

Power armor seems to be built differently in that every power has a higher level replacement that does the same thing. Not sure I like that approach more.

[Hayduke]

The character creation options are pretty overwhelming.  It's like the Spore creature creator.  Except the more you play with it the more hideous and garish your mongoloid becomes until you give up and hit the default button to reset everything.

[Hawkbit]

Where to start?  I had some good and some bad tonight while playing.  Unsure if I'll log in again.  It's neat, but I can't say if it's neat enough to play all the time.  

The graphics hitching I have is an interesting bird.  I'm using an 8800gtx and on recommended settings I'm getting hitching that isn't there on low.  Sadly, low looks like crap.  I figured it was my GPU just being two years old, but then I went into a self instanced area and recommended settings are no longer hitching.  In fact, it looks damn nice for once with the cel lines and bloom turned off.  Once back out into population, goes to crap again.  So it's not really my Video Card being old per se, rather something on their end that needs optimized.  

They stole WAR's public quests.  They might work better in this game, hard to say.  I really enjoy the concept and hope they work.  

Power descriptions are too complex for a beatemup.  Travel powers very early in the game is cool.  

[Triforcer]

Turn off outlining and that goddamn bloom and your opinion of the game will go up 100%.  I thought I had accidentally clicked on "miniature sun in chest cavity" in the Char. Creator when I got in-game.

Enjoying so far.  I LOVE teleportation but I can see where flight would make my PvE life easier. 

[Lantyssa]

Teleportation is friggin' awesome.  Any other game which has it needs to copy this model.

Those graphics options are new.  I'll peek over my roommie's shoulder if I get a chance, since that might reduce how ugly I think the game is by a little.  Most of my character complaints will stand though.

[ezrast]

I didn't mean to make another throwaway but couldn't help myself. Colors are a little odd on the first one courtesy of auto-white-balance.
I'm not feeling the character creator hate so far.

[Musashi]

I'm kind of amazed at how bad the game looks in those shots.  Like 1995 bad.

[Signe]

That's what I did too, Triforcer.  I think getting rid of that strange outlining helped the look a lot.  Why is it even there?  Are the characters supposed to look drawn or something?

[Ashamanchill]

I'm kind of amazed at how bad the game looks in those shots.  Like 1995 bad.

Ditto.  There is a mob in one of ezrast's screenshots (in the backround) who has no face. Seriously?

I was on the fence about this title, but you guys have given me some good reasons to stay away. Ah well.

[MuffinMan]

You'd think with the graphics not looking that great I'd be able to play on something other than the very lowest settings. I don't understand this game.