This game any fun?

[Anonymous]

Short review, anyone?

[Anger]

That was me.  Odd.

[schild]

Coming from Lineage 2 to this was like eating shit and then getting some good wine that was made for the first pope.  Seriously though, it will be a game I buy at release, stability, polish, shine, it has all these things. It is also fun, there's very little teh shiny, but when it comes to this game, gameplay rules the beast. When the NDA is lifted I'll get very specific about the game, but let's just say - I have no problem playing this until the second coming (of MMO's - could care less about the son of god) arrives.

It boggles my mind how NC Soft thinks Lineage 2 will be a hit comparatively. City of Heroes is going to be the fucking 'sleeper' title til everyone catches on.

[Velorath]

It boggles my mind how NC Soft thinks Lineage 2 will be a hit comparatively. City of Heroes is going to be the fucking 'sleeper' title til everyone catches on.

It's odd.  While I want this game to find the success it probably deserves, part of me hopes the masses never catch on.  I'll take a small niche community any day over the typical mainstream community, which tends to range from anti-social and dull like FFXI's, to the horrors of the WoW fanboys and apparently the Lineage 2 community.  Let the masses who are afraid of anything other than fucking fantasy MMORPG's keep chasing the empty promises of the Blizzards and SOE's, like a legion of Charlie Browns who really believe that this time Lucy isn't going to pull the damn football out from under them at the last fucking second.

On the other hand it would be nice to see this game do better than EQ2, just so other companies might be encouraged to do something original themselves.  As it stands Pirates of the Burning Sea is pretty much the only other MMORPG being worked on that I'm actually interested in seeing, unless some company gets off their ass and starts making a Shadowrun game.

[Alluvian]

Yes, but if this DOES hit it big, maybe the "hey guys, auto attack SUCKS" concept will sink in and we can get more fun combat in other games as well.

As schild states, he is WAITING for the second coming.  This isn't it yet I don't think, but it is better than anything else out there by a good margin.  We are still evolutionary at this point and not revolutionary, but the evolutions are in a very positive direction here.

Hell, the MOVEMENT is more fun than anything else in any mmog out there right now.  Jumping from building to building is better than any other gameplay before you even bring up combat and the actual game.

And I think the shiney is there in a VERY well done city.

Give your local gamestore a phonecall to see if they have the preorder box.  Grab it for $5.  It has a registration key on it that you can use to sign up for beta.  All registered with this key get in prior to april 7th (next wednesday) and then you can cancel your preorder if you don't like it and only be out $5 (less than swg beta) or if you stick with it for the first free month you can get started on the 25th of april instead of the 28th public launch.

No brainer if you are curious.

[Velorath]

I just got into the beta last night, but being on dial-up at the moment I've got another 27-30 hours of downloading left.

The thing about this game is, I don't think the devs were designing CoH with being the Second Coming in mind.  I don't recall ever seeing it marketed as the EQ, FFXI, or WoW killer.  I don't think they were ever expecting CoH to take away huge amounts of the other games playerbases.  They didn't go with an established genre or some licensed world for hype value.  This is one of the few MMORPGs where I get the feeling that the designers were really looking to do something fun rather than try to cash in off the masses, with "licensed fantasy world or sequel #758".

But yeah, I hope it does well enough to make other companies think twice about churning out the same old shit in their shiny new packaging.

[Alluvian]

They were probably scared that Freedom Force may have only been a temporary anomaly in the superhero game curse and trying to hide.

[Ubern00b]

is there going to be an open beta?

[schild]

is there going to be an open beta?

You're still here? Http://www.cityofheroes.com ...n00b.

[Velorath]

They were probably scared that Freedom Force may have only been a temporary anomaly in the superhero game curse and trying to hide.

I think a lot of us were afraid Freedom Force was only a temporary anomaly.  I mean fuck, Marvel comics alone has 20 some-odd movies in the works, and I fully expect nine-tenths of these movies to have crappy video game tie-ins.  Hell, even fucking Man-Thing is getting his own movie.  Besides having the most unitentionally funny comic book title back when Marvel was doing Giant-Size issues (resulting in Giant-Sized Man-Thing), I can't think of why anyone would want to make a movie about this character.

[Kyper]

CoH does a lot of things well.  Some other things, not so well.  I was one of the original 100 testers and have enjoyed the experience.  I've pre-ordered and will be there happily when the servers open.  

Once the NDA is lifted, I can post a lot more info.

[Arnold]

Yes, but if this DOES hit it big, maybe the "hey guys, auto attack SUCKS" concept will sink in and we can get more fun combat in other games as well.

Man, I've been waiting for somone to implement some good, interesting melee combat.  Hell, I'd even be interested in a FPS-style fencing or swordfighting game.

I never enjoyed playing warriors in MMOPRGs because they tend to be so limited in abilities and choices.  We need warriors who call up attacks, parries, ripostes, and feints in response to what their opponent is doing.

[Scorus]

Okay, you've convinced me, I'll pop out $5 for the pre-order. Two weeks at the end of beta should give me an idea if it is worth $50.

Have they said how many shards/universes/whatever they are having? Is this going to be an Eve/AO with only one game universe (at launch, at least), or multiples? I only ask because I see that you can reserve a character name during beta and that indicates they are going for the 1-universe-fits-all approach.

Scorus

[WayAbvPar]

What are the sys reqs (if you can mention them in a general way without breaking the NDA)? Will it run on low end systems? Do I need a 3 ghz system with a spanking new vid card?

Also- when the post NDA reviews come, please go over the powers available in detail. I am specifically looking to see if each character is actually different, or if power B is just power A reskinned (like flame attacks vs ice attacks). Can a nearly unique character be played? Are they 'effective'?

[schild]

I'll be doing a rundown of 5 or so of the more than 30 power sets when the NDA breaks, which will hopefully be April 7th.

I'll go ahead and answer whether powers are reskinned. The first 3 powers (which you get access to at level 1 and 2) are quite alike in every class. Well, not alike so much as very balanced against eachother. Once you get past that (which I can do in about 15 minutes) the classes start to get REALLY unique. More later.

[xcarnifex]

Questions......

I saw that at least two of the people in the beta are going to pre-order which has caused me to look at bit closer at the game.

I was hoping to get into the "open beta" that is supposed to take place after the 7th, but if it doesn't happen I see no way to try the game out without buying the full game or the pre-release CD.

I saw that best buy sold the pre-release seperate at 10 dollars a pop, but someone earlier said 5 dollars...where and can it be purchased at the retail outlets or just online?

Of the people who are planning to subscribe, what other games have you played or are playing of the MMO chain?  

Myself I've played EQ the most...DAOC about a month (too EQ-esque and was burnt on it), AO (won the game was fun for the free month), Shadowbane (felt totally ripped off), SWG (again, ripped off), and a few betas here and there.


I've found that it's pretty hard to get anyone I know to try out any MMOs with me anymore because of the complete trash they release.........and it really sucks that the NDA is still up on COH..cuz I'd like to know now if this game is worth the look.  Otherwise, if I don't get to try it, I won't be buying it without a lot of positive feedback after a few months past release.....so the new-ness has a chance to wear off.

[schild]

Go to your local EB, plop down $5 bucks and there you have it. Preorder for $5. Make sure they have the extra cd or will order you one.

[xcarnifex]

Called up EB and the guy thought City of Heroes was out already.  Told me you only get the CD when you pre-order and they were out anyway.  Oh well.

[schild]

Well it's underhanded, but you could go to Bestbuy, pick up a box for $10 and come back later and just say you don't want the preorder and get your $10 back, otherwise you get $10 off when it goes live.

[Alluvian]

I was hoping to get into the "open beta" that is supposed to take place after the 7th, but if it doesn't happen I see no way to try the game out without buying the full game or the pre-release CD.

Fucking hell, how many times does one have to repeat themselves?  There is not 'open beta'.  Only the preorder beta for those that have registered their preorder.  The preorder beta is promising everyone who registers will be in by the 7th of april.  To register you need the code off the cd sleeve in the preorder box.  So call around anywhere that sells games and ask them if they have the preorder box.  many places are sold out of the preorder box and never bothered restocking.  just call around.

Some you can get online, but places like gamestop online are out of preorder cds.  EB might still have them, but you would have to wait till they send it to you.  If you want in I would hurry up.  I am not sure what happens to people who register a preorder after the 7th.

My $5 is what my local EB asked for as the minimum order put down.  NC Soft does not get any money from preorders so the MSRP is $0.00, or whatever teh hell they feel like charging.  If you put 5 bucks down and change your mind, the local store gets that money, not NC Soft.


To the person wanting a 'unique character', well you can make a ton of very diverse characters.  Anyoen who wants to copy you could of course do the same thing you did though.  There is never a way to gauruntee you are unique.  Suffice it to say there are a lot of valid combinations.  Way too many to even try to figure out statistically.

[xcarnifex]

Read this off their website.  It's not the definition of open (IE get as many people in as possible before retail), but it's pretty close considering they are going to get a large signup of people and are randomly selecting them....meaning there's no qualifications needed to test (preorder, betaed 100 games before).....pretty much "open".

So I guess it's not "only the preorder beta" after all, fucking hell.


Public Beta Signup
Monday, March 29, 2004

Hope for the Beta-less

So you didn’t get (or find) a pre-order box and you didn’t register on the forums until after Nov. 1st, 2003, and you’ve also struck out on the various CoH beta giveaway contests on the web… what’s a beta-less super-powered hero to do? Well, take heart, the beta train for Paragon City hasn’t quite left the station! This is your last best chance for getting into beta! Read on…

Starting today, we are creating a new public beta pool for those who haven’t had the opportunity to be included in our past beta selections. To signup for this beta pool, you are going to need a PlayNC account. Please head on over to PlayNC and follow the instructions for creating your account. After you have your PlayNC account name and password, the next step is to go to Beta Signup and follow the instructions for registering. Random beta invites from this pool will be sent out by email starting on April 14th. Good luck!

[Alluvian]

Interesting.  Not an open beta yet though.  Open beta is like lineage 2 where anyone who signs up gets a login and password and crushes the game servers.

[CmdrSlack]

Yeah, I ordered the preorder on gamestop online to discover that they're waiting for more beta boxes.

I called all the gamestops in town, none had any beta boxes.

I may have to try circuit city or somewhere else similar today...ugh.

[schild]

Best Buys everywhere still have about 5 or so. For some reason they were supplied with an assload of them at the beginning. Just call your local one.

[Romp]

there isnt even a crappy teams or consensual pvp system? :(

[Velorath]

No pvp yet, but a long ways back they had plans to put in an arena.  I think the reason for holding off on any sort of pvp, was to make sure they got the pve right.  Given that few if any MMORPGs have had much success making pve actually fun, I think it was a good decision on their part.  I'll take a solid, fun PVE based MMORPG with no PVP right now over another DAOC. SB, or L2.

[xcarnifex]

I was reading their forums.  From what I gather...their first expansion is supposed to be when "villains" are added and arena PVP is added (possibly more, but arena for sure is what Im sensing).


I'd just like to play.  Honestly reading through the website and description of their systems, the game seems really simple in design ignoring their character customization.  What I think is happening is the website doesn't host enough information to make any sort of solid judgement on the game besides the very broadest and core of their game.


I haven't seen anything negative said on their forums about the game....besides lack of pvp, villains (being evil), and it being pretty much North American only in it's release and target audience.


So if those are the biggest complaints about the game, then I think that's pretty impressive.


I hope that if/when I get into the pre-release beta that they have a couple patches in that period...cuz I'd like to see how they handle the patching of the game.  Everquest seemed like it spent somewhere around four hours each week patching, and it was usually during the time I played.  And that's assuming no problems arose (which 90% of the time they did), and they still have these kind of patches going in....people are reporting tons of problems with DX9 support they added.



And another thing I've gathered from reading their forums...the next wave of beta invites won't be this weekend.  They might not even happen until the 7th....and when they do happen that means there will be a whole lotta people downloading their client all at once.  So I hope someone bittorrents it, or ncsoft does like blizzard did the wow beta.

[Jenn]

I vote everyone pitches in and buys Jennifer a new video card so she can play! *snicker* Seriously though, I tried stealing it from Joe. What a joke.

"Your video card is a piece of shit. Now die plzkthx."

[Liquidator]

Best Buys everywhere still have about 5 or so. For some reason they were supplied with an assload of them at the beginning. Just call your local one.

Yep, I can confirm this, at least for my local Best Buy.  The EB in the local mall was sold out, but I went to Best Buy and they had at least 10 pre-order boxes.  I picked one up, and I'm all registered.  I guess I'll be in by this Wednesday, I can't wait.

-Liquidator

[Alluvian]

I hope that if/when I get into the pre-release beta that they have a couple patches in that period...cuz I'd like to see how they handle the patching of the game.

You can't tell anything about how a live game will patch from how they patch during BETA.  Besides, CoH has been featured locked for about 3 months now.  They won't be doing any major patches.  They have been just doing balance tweaks for a long time.

The preorder is mainly stress test so I expect the servers to go down a lot.  I expect them to intentionally take servers down and run on far less than they should be running just so see what happens to the server at that load and fix any bugs that crop up due to being crushed.  I have a feeling the next few weeks will be nearly unplayable by design.

[xcarnifex]

Well apparently for a long while in beta cryptic has been running the servers about 4-5 days out of a week then taking them down for the rest.

People have been saying that they do run closer to 24/7, but they are still taken down intentionally.  My guess is for updates and upgrades.

As for unplayable during the next few weeks...I dunno.  They have been doing waves of people getting in, which would indicate that they aren't trying to over burden the server in a large way immediately.  And them having servers going in on Wednesday doesn't seem to fit the overburdening, unplayable scheme either.


I'd say they are using the opportunity to make sure their servers are "hardened" to the onslaught of a "retail-esque" attack.  Also probably trying to judge how many servers they will need in place for retail to host everyone.  DAOC had this...got way more people than they expected and caused problems for awhile.


I'd say them making the game intentionally unplayable for long periods will really hurt them by word of mouth, and I don't think they want to take that route being new to the MMO block.

And yes you can tell how a live game will patch from how they patch during beta.  If they don't have their process pretty much locked down and running like clockwork before retail, they are headed for problems.  Does it mean they will never run into problems in retail with patches?  No, but they better have a strong and tested process in place that works long before retail rolls around.  

It costs a lot of credibility to have the 10-20k beta testers say good things for the company...then comes in the wave of 50k people at retail and problems arise.  If they have unstable/overburdened servers and "patch & pray" patches......then that's going to cost them a whole lot of face.

[Soukyan]

They're going to 24/7 starting at 10 am CST today. And judging by the time, they're underway. Of course, crashes and downtime for bugfixes and patches will be happening, but they are trying to keep the servers up as much as possible now.

[Fargull]

Will be on tonight.

[xcarnifex]

Hoping I get a beta invite today, but if not....should be getting one tommorrow if they stick to what they've been saying.

Not really looking forward to getting the invite then spending a day or two downloading the client..heh.

[Censorship]

Out of morbid curiosity, can anyone tell me whether or not the Control Archetype is gimpy without breaking the NDA.

From what I can glean from their website, it looks as though your true allstars are the Scrappers, Tanks, Blasters and Defenders (in that order).  Controlers seem to be an afterthought, or at best, a unique buff bot/mezzer/summoner.

In any case, we shall be waiting for your answer.