Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 01:01:50 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
we're back, baby
*
Home Help Search Login Register
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  City of Heroes / City of Villains  |  Topic: CoH NDA Lifted 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Pages: [1] Go Down Print
Author Topic: CoH NDA Lifted  (Read 9573 times)
Shurijo
Guest


Email
on: April 12, 2004, 05:47:05 PM

Quote

CoH NDA Lifted!
Monday, April 12, 2004

The Floodgates Of Communication Are Open

We are pleased to announce that the City of Heroes NDA has been lifted! This means that those playing the game are free to talk about all aspects openly. So what are you waiting for? Start sharing info and feel free to discuss the game on our public message board!


http://www.cityofheros.com/news/item211.html

Now that the NDA is gone, I'm really interested to read some of your reviews and comments about the game.
Kyper
Terracotta Army
Posts: 76


Reply #1 on: April 12, 2004, 06:06:25 PM

It's a fun game.  

Combat is fast and furious.  Loot is nearly non-existant.  The only thing you get are "enhancements", items that can improve your powers.  At lower levels, they aren't terribly important, but at higher levels you must have them.

Soloing is very possible.  Lots of people complain that it's not, but I have solo'd most of my time in game.  It's slower than grouping and you will be defeated by "boss" mobs, but it's still possible to solo.

Grouping is very fun.  The different character archetypes bring different things to the group.  It's similar to EQ in that respect.  But, you don't have to sit around waiting for a healer for your group.  You can run off in a group of three scrappers, a tank and a blaster, etc.  

There is a lack of an elder game.  Devs are working on it already.  

They're promising regular updates to the game, including a "tailor" which will let you alter your costume after you've created it.  

Supergroups are limited to 75 characters.  That's a big downer for me.  Also there are no bases or banks for individuals or supergroups... yet.  I'm sure those will come in a future update or expansion.  One dev did post the other day that supergroups aren't really what they wanted them to be.  I expect we'll see some changes to them in the near future.

Missions are pretty cool.  Each one has a story to it and it's quite different than the generic swg missions.  Most missions take players to instanced areas where only they or their group can take part.

There are some complaints about the xp debt at high levels.  It's 5% of your xp needed to level, to a max of 50%.  When you have debt, half of your future xp goes toward wiping it out, the other half goes toward levelling.  One or two deaths are no big deal, but if you get to 50% debt, it hurts.  Devs are re-examining debt for high level characters and we could see changes there.

Overall, I like the game a lot and pre-ordered just a few weeks ago, after being in beta since December.

EDIT:  some of my screenshots are here.
schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345


WWW
Reply #2 on: April 12, 2004, 06:18:09 PM

I've already begun to write a piece. Screenshots and the piece should be up tonight or tomorrow.
Shurijo
Guest


Email
Reply #3 on: April 12, 2004, 06:32:58 PM

Thanks. I've been in beta for about 6 weeks, so I know the basics. But its always nice to get a good review and comments from you guys.
Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536


Reply #4 on: April 12, 2004, 07:12:52 PM

Yea, I'll leave the good reviews to folks who've been playing it longer. But for me personally, this is one freakin' fun game.

A lot is the same from E3 last May, which in itself is cool. Besides all the highlights, my favorite part is how one finds general hunting (if not doing missions in groups).

NPCs run from enemies, so watching them will let you know quicker where action can be found. They also thank you after the fight is done, and they'll follow you as long as you stay in the zone until they've thanked you.

That's just one example of the aliveness of the place. Basically, CoH to me is GTA meeting Diablo, except you can only be a good guy (hence the 'hero' part I guess).

Get this game. Don't wait :)
Morfiend
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6009

wants a greif tittle


Reply #5 on: April 12, 2004, 08:06:54 PM

Also, I just want to say, the Side Kick function is one of the best ideas a MMOG has done in a long while.

I cant even begin to say how cool it is to be level 2 and go hunting with all my level 10+ guildmates. Also, if you reroll a new toon, you arnt stuck for days and days of playing catch up, just to group with your friends again. MAJOR props for the Side Kick function.
Alluvian
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1205


WWW
Reply #6 on: April 12, 2004, 09:39:20 PM

LOVE the game.  Annoyed at a perma-debt bug I have and don't really know how I got it.

I had no debt, died once or twice, this was at the beginning of level 12.  I got about 90% through the first bubble and was out of debt.  A few combats later that bubble fills, and WHAM whole bar is all debt again.  Scramble out, fill a bubble, WHAM all debt again.  Pissing me off.  Character is gimped.  Will see how their support is in beta, I am not hoping on much.

Gripe about a bug I have not heard others with.  The game itself is graet.
Shurijo
Guest


Email
Reply #7 on: April 12, 2004, 10:00:28 PM

Did you submit a petition? I've had a testmaster respond in less than 5 minutes before, but that was back when we only had 3k beta testers.
Censorship
Guest


Email
Reply #8 on: April 12, 2004, 10:02:47 PM

I'll ditto what everyone else said.  Awesome Combat.  Enjoyable, to at least tolerable quests.  Great Customazation.  In sum:  Fun.

The only fear I have is that of the technical dark side.  To be fair though, I'll list my system specs so you may enjoy the following with a grain of salt.

AMD 1300 Athlon
256 DDR
Nvidia Ge3

My technical intamacies laid bare, I must say the client can be buggy.  I freeze enough to notice and 90% of the time when I quit, the client has somehow creatively rearranged my resolution in a format unfit for human consumption (think 1200 x 400 or some such nonesuch).

Worst of all is prime time.  When that hits, I have no hope of playing for anything over a minute straight.  It just happens.

Now I don't want to lambast this game as unplayable.  It is in certainly far better shape than SB or AO was, and probably are.  However, I greatly fear what will happen upon release and I doubley fear to what levels of incompetence NCsoft will sink.

Here's hoping...

Edit:  I forgot one important detail.  I'm running on Win 98.  My guess is that is the culprit behind many of my lock ups and disconnects.  Still, it should serve as a warning to anyone who also happens to be using an outdated OS.
Velorath
Contributor
Posts: 8980


Reply #9 on: April 12, 2004, 11:19:51 PM

I'll throw in some of  my opinions here:

This game is entertaining from the second you get to the character creation, which normally isn't something I even get into all that much.  For once, your character looks as cool as your imagination will make him look, and while some people will opt to try to rip off existing characters (I've seen two versions of the Tick now for example which will probably have to be changed), almost every hero I've seen has been original.  Of course as many people have mentioned, things like wings and capes have been left out for now, which is kind of disappointing.  One could make a wide variety of demonic looking heroes with horns, a tail, and all, but with no wings one would be hard pressed to make an angelic looking one.  Also, for characters whose powers are weapon based (broadsword, katana, and assault rifle for instance) it would have been nice have been able to select different looking weapons.

The only other real problem I had with the game was with my first character.  When he was level 4, I took on a mission to kill 10 clockworks, not knowing that these bastards tended to be higher level, and generally hang out in groups of 4 or 5.   Since that was my only contact at the time I couldn't get any other missions (and since then, I'll always try to select indoor missions rather than the kill 10 missions).  The devs have tweaked a lot of the spawns for the kill task missions recently though, and hopefully once the game goes live the servers won't be as crowded leading to less competition for spawns.  I've had a lot of people jump into the middle of some of my battles presumably because they were hunting those particular gangs.  I suppose the thought of asking if I wanted to group to hunt them never occured to them.

Like everyone else has said the combat is fun.  There is nothing like hovering to the top of a building (I tend to rubberband a lot causing me to fall off of fire escapes so I stick so hovering is helpful in that respect too) and firing into a crowd of CoT, or shotgunning one mob, stunning another with a beanbag projectile, and then spraying one with some machinegun fire.  Almost every power combo I've tried has been at least a little fun to start of with, but that doesn't mean it doesn't become more fun as you gain levels and pick up more tricks.  Lag and rubberbanding aside, which are to be expected since almost everyone is on Prime, the controls are very tight and intuitive.  I can back away out of melee range from one mob with switiching between three or four different attacks on multiple targets and use Inspirations as needed.  I can hover up along side the fire escape shooting at a criminal as he tries to make a run for it.  Everything about the gameplay just feels good.

The last thing I have to comment on is the feel of the game world.  Much like comic book universes themselves, you have such a mix of seriousness and humor.  You've got dark clad gun wielding vigilantes, martial artists, and bright colored spandex wearing giants with clown make-up on.  You've got drug dealers and nazi groups, and you've got those little clockwork bastards.  And you have to love the newspaper emote.
MrHat
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7432

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.


Reply #10 on: April 12, 2004, 11:45:39 PM

I'm having a blast, wish I could hook up with you guys, but I'm afraid after 8 characters, I'm still unsure what I want.

Lag was killer tonight.
Glamdring
Terracotta Army
Posts: 139


Reply #11 on: April 13, 2004, 06:05:01 AM

I hate this game just because it has readdicted me to the genre that I swore I would never play again.

The 'sidekick' system is the coolest mmog feature implementation since graphics were placed on top of a mud interface.
kaid
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3113


Reply #12 on: April 13, 2004, 06:44:50 AM

The response times of their test masters were pretty good the few game stoppers I had early such a some bugged missions so make sure to go to menu then help and then give them a low down on what your problem is alluvian.


That is a pretty odd bug with perma debt and not one I have seen before deffinatly one they need to look at.

Kaid
Alluvian
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1205


WWW
Reply #13 on: April 13, 2004, 08:01:18 AM

Yeah, one that they can't really do much to verify either.  Other than sitting there and watching me as my exp clickover from one bubble to the next and I magically get my debt back.  Heh, still with that I managed to get 3 bubbles in perez park last night (jewel theif mission, rescue scientist mission, and just romping on level 10 groups of CoT in the park itself).

I seem to hit a rut every 3 levels or so where missions become too tough for me.  I just finish off the level I am in outdoors and then revisit them for an easier time.

One was a BITCH though.  I leveled twice and each time it upgraded on me.  Always had a section with two bosses equal level to me.  Christ that was hard for me.  Fire blaster does not get much single target focused damage early on.  We are much better at killing groups of 15 minions solo than we are vs a boss.  And two bosses is just a BITCH.  Manged to do it in two stages eventually.  Fixating on one to kill him, running outside to rest, then coming back and doing the other that was already seriously wounded from all the incidental damage of my AOEs.

I love my fire/fire blaster.  Sure a scrapper, a tank, or an electricity blaster can do much better vs bosses than I can, but there is just something deeply satisfying about walking into perez park at level 12, seeing 10 COT all level 10 and whiping the off the face of the earth without hardly taking a scratch.  Against hellions I have done groups of 13-15 level 10s.
kaid
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3113


Reply #14 on: April 13, 2004, 08:56:20 AM

One thing I would be curious to see alluvian is if you have any red bricks in your exp bar. If you get enough debt it attatchs some to multiple blocks of xp. So after you clear one bar the next block you start may still have debt. I once had 3 red blocks of debt due to an unfortunate series of events and I am curious if that may be what you are seeing.

You may need to have your wife look though as the "red" brick is very dim and I did not notice them at all for a bit until I looked close.


kaid
WayAbvPar
Moderator
Posts: 19268


Reply #15 on: April 13, 2004, 09:52:31 AM

Quote
Edit: I forgot one important detail. I'm running on Win 98. My guess is that is the culprit behind many of my lock ups and disconnects. Still, it should serve as a warning to anyone who also happens to be using an outdated OS.


That is probably a good guess. I remember a lot of folks (Haemish in particular) had trouble with Win98 and Shadowbane.

When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM

Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood

Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
Soukyan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1995


WWW
Reply #16 on: April 13, 2004, 10:07:53 AM

Quote from: WayAbvPar
I remember a lot of folks (Haemish in particular) had trouble with Shadowbane.



Sorry. Had to fix that. Please carry on with the regularly scheduled discussion. ;)

"Life is no cabaret... we're inviting you anyway." ~Amanda Palmer
"Tree, awesome, numa numa, love triangle, internal combustion engine, mountain, walk, whiskey, peace, pascagoula" ~Lantyssa
"Les vrais paradis sont les paradis qu'on a perdus." ~Marcel Proust
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #17 on: April 13, 2004, 10:57:00 AM

Quote from: Censorship
The only fear I have is that of the technical dark side.  To be fair though, I'll list my system specs so you may enjoy the following with a grain of salt.

AMD 1300 Athlon
256 DDR
Nvidia Ge3


My specs for comparison.

1.2 Ghz Athlon
320 MB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 2 MX 400 (64MB RAM)
Also Win98

I have only noticed one bug. If I choose "Quit to Desktop" the game will send me to desktop, but will hang in the background. I'll be out of CoH but it will still be eating up memory in the background until I go to Task Manager and shut it off.

Other than that, no crashes whatsoever. I don't think it's necessarily Win98. I'm also using a way old video driver (30.82) and haven't experienced any issues with it.

Morfiend
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6009

wants a greif tittle


Reply #18 on: April 13, 2004, 11:32:24 AM

You guys do know that you can quit or "dump" missions right?

I havent had to do it yet, but I have been tempted.
Fargull
Contributor
Posts: 931


Reply #19 on: April 13, 2004, 11:34:10 AM

Nope, did not know you could.  How do you dump the mission?

Does it cost you anything?

"I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit." John Steinbeck
Alluvian
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1205


WWW
Reply #20 on: April 13, 2004, 11:46:19 AM

I like the 'hit squads' that get assigned to you on some delivery missions.  At level 12 I had a whole group of level 12 thugs spawn on me, about six of them.  I think it was so big because I was in a group of four, but only me and electron blue were there at the time.  I was sort of afk and took a beating before I ran back to defend myself.  Ended up dying, but electron managed to finish them off.  It was pretty neat and sure kept me on my toes the rest of the day.

Later on I had two more 12's attack me on another mission while solo.  In areas that normally do NOT spawn anyone of that level.

[edited to add]
A patch on the 8th or something made it so that these hit squads do not spawn in 'level inappropriate' areas.  So that they would not show up in Atlas park to kill newbies.  They DID show up in kings row though which normally has a MOST level 9 or 10 mobs (and those are pretty rare).
kaid
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3113


Reply #21 on: April 13, 2004, 12:09:16 PM

Hit squads will in general only spawn in zones that assigned you the mission to begin with or higher.

It really is a trip running down the street and all the sudden a ton of NAZI  flying pod things swoop down out of the sky to blast you. Yes folks at higher levels you can and do get some flying ambush squads hehe man that surpised the hell out of me when it happened.

kaid
Morfiend
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6009

wants a greif tittle


Reply #22 on: April 13, 2004, 02:42:24 PM

Quote from: Fargull
Nope, did not know you could.  How do you dump the mission?

Does it cost you anything?


I think i opened my missions tab, and double clicked on the mission. Then it asked me if I wanted to quit my mission. Wish I had known this earlier also, cause I got a bugged mission, and I had to reroll from lvl 4 thinking I was screwed.
Velorath
Contributor
Posts: 8980


Reply #23 on: April 13, 2004, 04:32:05 PM

Quote from: Morphiend
Quote from: Fargull
Nope, did not know you could.  How do you dump the mission?

Does it cost you anything?


I think i opened my missions tab, and double clicked on the mission. Then it asked me if I wanted to quit my mission. Wish I had known this earlier also, cause I got a bugged mission, and I had to reroll from lvl 4 thinking I was screwed.


I've done that once before but it didn't erase the mission for me, I think it just reset it (it was an indoor mission).
Kyper
Terracotta Army
Posts: 76


Reply #24 on: April 13, 2004, 04:36:41 PM

Quote from: Morphiend
Quote from: Fargull
Nope, did not know you could.  How do you dump the mission?

Does it cost you anything?


I think i opened my missions tab, and double clicked on the mission. Then it asked me if I wanted to quit my mission. Wish I had known this earlier also, cause I got a bugged mission, and I had to reroll from lvl 4 thinking I was screwed.


I didn't think you abort missions once you've taken them.  Haven't tried it in game, but I remember lots of discussion on the beta boards where the devs said "ain't gonna happen".
Shurijo
Guest


Email
Reply #25 on: April 13, 2004, 10:16:11 PM

Quote from: Morphiend
I think i opened my missions tab, and double clicked on the mission. Then it asked me if I wanted to quit my mission. Wish I had known this earlier also, cause I got a bugged mission, and I had to reroll from lvl 4 thinking I was screwed.


I think that it only resets your mission. For example, if you are on a mission and finish about half way through (as a group) and your team gets defeated, then you meet up outside of the mission point. If you select another mission, it will ask you if you are sure you want to quit your mission (so it can make the other mission active). I think this only happens if you are on a team. Do you remember if you were the team leader? Because I'm about 99.9% sure you can't quit a mission (that was done on purpose and there is a dev post about why they did that - relates to the story line and stops people from taking the easy missions).
Alluvian
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1205


WWW
Reply #26 on: April 14, 2004, 07:06:10 AM

No, it happens solo as well.  The game will only keep one instance open for you, even if it you are switching to a kill x mission it will close your instance first.  A good use of this is if you are having a real hard time, and then someone leaves the group, there is NO way you will finish that mission so you can reset it.  Then it will be re-balanced to your new group when you re-enter.
Pages: [1] Go Up Print 
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  City of Heroes / City of Villains  |  Topic: CoH NDA Lifted  
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC