I am loving this game. The character system beats City of Heroes/Villains by a mile, largely by allowing you to mix and match powers from different sets. Want to make a blatant Ryu-ripoff martial artist who also throws fireballs? You can. Want a pistol-packing gunslinger who also raises the dead? You can do that, too, and also create a thematically appropriate costume quite easily. Champions Online also curbstomps CoX by giving you your travel power right away, rather than making you wait until level 20. There's lots of content: three colossal megazones available as soon as you leave your newbie area, full of contacts and missions, plus the mission journal includes a handy-dandy "crime computer" that lists all the NPCs who have missions appropriate to your level. You won't lack for things to do. Performance is generally quite good, with the important caveat that on a major content-release day and for a few days thereafter, Millennium City is a hell of rubberbanding.

Finally, two points really sell this game for me: the lack of focus on gear, and the sidekick system. You simply don't grind for gear in Champions Online. Rather than the yawnworthy head, torso, arms, legs, etc., slots we all got tired of years ago, you have nine abstract slots: a primary Offense, two secondary Offenses, primary Defense and two secondaries, and primary Utility and two secondaries. These generally only contribute stat boosts, although occasionally will change the way one or more powers behaves. As you play, you will find items appropriate to your powers and level, and that's the end of it. There are no gear checks, nobody lording their Holy Divine Celestial Full Plate Armor of Wankery +10 over you.

The other thing is sidekicking. In every team, there is the team leader and the team champion (not necessarily the same person). If you right-click on your own portrait and select "Start sidekicking," your level is temporarily adjusted to match the level of the team champion. That's right: you don't have to worry about outleveling your friends or being outleveled. Any character of any level can contribute to any mission of any level. You don't get any new powers if your level goes up while sidekicking, but you gain level-appropriate hit points and your powers function as if they would at the new level. You can also sidekick down to a lower level in order to avoid killing your teammates' XP gain. Why every MMO in existence doesn't do this, I cannot fathom.

The player base is generally mature and helpful; I have yet to encounter any aggressive dickwads in the three weeks or so I've been playing. Not sure if I'll hold true to form and get bored with it before my free 30 days are up, but I'm still looking forward to the things I haven't seen or done.

Interesting. I enjoyed CoX for all the powers, but upgrading was always incredibly expensive. The other MMO's I try/play, with the exception of WoW, always had trouble with grouping. Whenever I needed to, people weren't around. STO had a nice auto-group feature for missions and Fleet Actions, but it was buggy. Blerg.

How does CO rate in regards to grouping and the social aspect?

I've never had difficulty finding a group when I wanted to, and the folks I've grouped with have been refreshingly non-douchelike. Upgrading in CO is free: you go to a Powerhouse, talk to a trainer, and pick your new power/talent (stat boost)/advantage(s) (optional features for your powers) and there you go. No cost in resources.

Hm. I am a fan of the superhero genre. I may look at it later. I still have to play through New Vegas, however, and Cata drops in 45 days.

I like champions.. but there is not enough content imho. They should create player made missions ala COx. A stroke of GENIUS in my opinion.

That's right... GENIUS!

-YK

Although I also liked the play made missions, they tend to drown out the game's main storylines. Folks ended up just playing farmign missions in CoX to level.

I agree they need more content, to level up you really need to do every mission in the game.

I have a lifetime sub to Champions, but have been sticking to CoX for two main reasons:

1. I have a regular super-group that I hang out with there.

2. I like base building.

I have also been a little disappointed at Cryptic's business model of "Push the game live as soon as it's playable and we'll finish the rest as we go".



-k

I can agree with that sentiment. I did some light beta (I think..it was awhile ago) and pondered going lifer on subscription, but decided against it. I have to say that I enjoyed the experience for the most-part, but maxxed level rather quickly and sorta ran out of things to do. Did some nemesis stuff, was there for the halloweeny zombie stuff with the undead heroes etc. But I also heavily noticed the cryptic "put it out, we'll see if we can add stuff later' approach. My interest waned and then my subscrip ran out.

On the other hand, I'm a lifer over at Star Trek Online, they use the same model, 'go live, but not complete'. But being lifer allows me to play a couple months, leave a couple months and come back when new content opens up. Maybe I'll jump into champions again someday, but I doubt it. Though I think I'm just a masochist, as I've already pre-ordered DC online...I'd just like to find a stable, storied superhero game that I can call home.

Well just got an email.

Be thankful if you didn't get the lifetime membership. (unless they do like Lotro did, where my lifetime means free points and lots of bonuses and permant vip)

They are going free to play after the first of the new year (1st quarter of 2011)

Yeah, the "free" Silver accounts will have restrictions on them, with the option to "buy off" some of the restrictions via microtransactions.

Lifetime and Pay-per-month Gold members will continue to get full access to everything and premium treatment. Four times the character slots, access to premium powers and costume parts, priority logins, etc.

The big one is only Gold accounts can mix and match powers from multiple powersets - Silver accounts can only select whole pre-packaged powersets instead of individual powers.

It still feels like a raw deal, though



-k

The pre-packaged thing kind of sucks. Seems like on of the big draws of the game is the ability to mix and match. I wonder if you can buy it off or not.

Personally I like the 'free to play but buy some options' model if it is done right.

DDO for instance does it right. It is entirely viable to go from level 1 to 20 (max) without buying anything, and most things that you can buy won't actually help you very much. What you get from the things you buy is options. You gain access to a wider verity of quests (so you don't get bored), more race and class options, and a few perks like extra storage space (Oh, and you can buy bonus xp stuff so you level faster and some healing items which are generally available in game). But there is really nothing that you can look at on a character gameplay wise and say that the person is or isn't a free-to-play account. There isn't any sort of 'you must pay to play effectively' like so many other games that use the model. And awesomely enough, you can get 'pay to play points' from in game actions, as well as unlock certain features such as some races/classes and such.

Not entirely sure if Champions is going to go this route, or the seemingly more popular "You must spend hundreds of dollars if you want to be in end game, give us your money! RAWR!"

Neat! Gonna have to try it, when they make the change.

Bye
Thanee

Ditto. We'll make a prepackaged super-team!

Wonder powers activate, and all that.

I'll join. We get to be evil right?

I don't see why not.

Oh, just noticed it is the same group that does DDO. Hopefully that means they'll do alright with it.

Same publisher (Atari), different development house.

DDO is Turbine.

CO is Cryptic Studios, the guys who did Star Trek Online and City of Heroes.




-k

Oh, well... somewhat less hope then, but maybe they can glance over at how well turbine is doing (AFAIK) with DDO and take some notes.

Well, that kind of sucks. You can't get past the tutorial with a trial account. You don't even get more than those first two powers. Now I think I'm just going to play around with the costumes for a few hours.

Edit: How much is a lifetime membership?

Wait, what? I'm reasonably sure I got past the tutorial on my trial. Maybe they changed it. Anyway, lifetime subscriptions are no longer available for CO; the monthly rate is $14.99; I went with $29.99 every three months. In good news, the massive rubberbanding that plagued Millennium City after the recent release of the Demonflame adventure pack has been fixed. Yay, responsive devs!

If any of you care to look me up, my handle is @Hakkonen.

Hmm, I'll try again, but every time I tried getting into a chopper it just pulled up ads to buy the game and talked about continuing my adventure.

My characters are Feonia and Karoline. Not sure which one I'm going to continue with if I can in fact get past the tutorial.

Yep, have to get the full game to get out of the starting area, which is fairly lame, as that limits you to around level 6 and you never get any powers beyond your first. It gives a decent idea about the basic gameplay, but I think seeing the improved powers and such is a kind of important part of the game. Real shame when you max out the trial in an hour or so.

Well, CO is available through Steam for $19.99 and includes 30 days of play. Dunno how much it is on disc.

Yeah, I did see that, but I don't like to pay monthly for games. I'll likely wait till next year when it becomes F2P.

Cryptic is also doing the next Neverwinter Nights.

I read an interview recently (dunno where, unfortunately), which was quite promising. They havn't done everything right in the past, but they are well aware of that fact, and are very eager to move on and put out some real quality products (of course, everyone would say so, but he did seem honest enough ).

Bye
Thanee

"based on the acclaimed 4th Edition rules"

i've played COH which i believe the same people have made this game. Does this one have crafting in it? COH was fun but after the last of the people i ran with left no crafting put the kaybosh on my sticking around.

It has crafting.

In the words of some big demonic type creature "Nnnoooooooo!"

Actually, I don't know anything about the 4th edition, but have heard more bad than good about it.

I've both played and DMd 4th edition, and consider it vastly inferior to 3.5.

So, I did end up getting CO, and have been enjoying it quite a bit. One thing I've really enjoyed is that the levels come quickly consistently. My main is up to level 22 (of 40 max) and I haven't noticed a huge increase in leveling time like you get with most other games. Only real problem I see with that is that I'm going to be maxing out quickly unless it slows down, guess I'll get to see how the end game is then, and it means that I'm not real worried about having multiple characters and trying out different stuff. I've really enjoyed the primal and gadgettering frameworks so far. Darkness and martial arts haven't worked out as well as I'd hoped.

My two highest characters use Sorcery (level 30) and Power Armor (level 21). The Power Armor minigun is incredibly useful for mowing down henchmen, hits villains where it hurts, and does respectably against master villains. Sorcery really doesn't lend itself to a mobile playstyle, with a lot of its powers (Circles, Rituals, Sigils) being tied to the spot they're activated on. With a little practice at making the bad guys come to you, though, you can turn any patch of ground into a meatgrinder.

I'm surprisingly close to catching you with my 22 then

That said, I prefer to just hit stuff with my orbital cannon. If I'm coming off a battle with high energy, I do that, then charge my basic attack to full. The combination instantly kills Villans, and drops about two bars off of Master Villans, the last bar of which quickly goes away thanks to my pets' rocket launchers and the anvil enchancement on my cannon. Really, the only way I have trouble in that game right now is if I draw too much agro to myself instead of letting my pets take some of it. That or my healing drones not doing their job. Plan on upgrading them soon so they do AoE healing so it won't be as big of a problem.

I am become death, destroyer of.... I mean, woo, level 25

Now my medic drones do an AoE heal for a combined total of about 150 health every second.

I'd really like it if I could get missions more than 3 levels above my current level, because taking out opponents 3 levels above myself was boring even before I got the AoE heal and my drones were doing more like 80 health a second combined. Heck, I'd even take out named super villains 3 levels above myself (along with a couple normal villains that were standing around) without taking any real damage or even having to use my heal ability.

I plan on branching into some of the mystic groups to get access to more pets. Currently have 5 main pets, one of which can summon 4 more pets, and a power that lets me summon a pet every 10 seconds that lasts for 60 seconds, but is interuptable and requires fresh corpses, so usually only have 2-3 of those.

Only thing I actually have had any trouble with is PvP, since people get to ignore my pets. But I haven't tried it since I upgraded my healing drones, so may have to give it another look, see if people can overcome my massive health regen.

Can't have both, I guess.

Bye
Thanee

Yeah, unless the game has hundreds of levels or something. I did read something about there being special stuff to do with your xp once you max out, so that'll likely extend things. And as I said, it makes you not feel bad about having multiple characters since it is so easy to level them.

Proof that I've been playing CO too much lately? In my PbP game, the GM puts

and my first thought is "Why am I using a water craft? I have jet boots!" Shortly followed by "Oh, wait, wrong game."

I find this a little hard to credit, unless you've chanced on the most brokenly overpowered build in the game (admittedly not beyond the realm of possibility). Supervillains of your own level should be a challenging fight all by themselves; supervillains three levels above you should be grinding your face in the dirt without breaking a sweat.

Well, I beat Eclipse (level 27) at level 24. I beat Armadillo (Level 26 I believe) at level 23 (or 27 and 24). Did Mechanist at level 25. Not entirely sure what level he was, 27? I did a level 26 or 27 two person mission on my own at level 25. I don't know if those are the same type of supervillains you're talking about, but I figure it is. If you're just talking about normal supervillains (without the star type stuff on their border and unique names) then those I generally kill 3 levels above me in 10 seconds or so if I start the battle with good energy. You're welcome to find me and see for yourself. I'm on right now, about to hit level 26.

Generally the only time I get killed is if I accidentally grab the agro of a dozen or more mixed villains and henchman.

When the game first went live:

- There was no endgame. At all. One of the Devs suggested trying a new character.

- There was only enough content to level one character to max. Interested in starting a new character? hey, look, you get to run through the same damn content over again because there's nothing else.

This was entirely because the Cryptic Studio game development paradigm is to spend the absolute minimum time needed to create the game engine, create enough content for one playthrough, and shake out most of the critical bugs.

Normally at this point most other game studios would spend another year or two just creating further content and doing further polishing. Not Cryptic. They go live immediately, counting on being able to "finish" their game while the game is running.

Now, from a business standpoint, this makes some sense. You start being able to get a return on the monetary investment up to two years earlier in development than most other MMOs. But you run the great risk of losing customers and the bad negative reputation for being so content-lite.

Since launch? It is true Cryptic has put out additional content, and some end-game stuff. But not nearly as much as most other MMOs in the same time period, partly because resources and developers were diverted from Champions soon after it's launch to go support Star Trek Online. And this is happening again in STO as Cryptic develops Neverwinter.



-k

Yeah, I have kind of noticed that it looks like there will be alot of convergence of quests after my second or so character. Seems to me you can mostly stick to the desert or Canada, but you're going to have to go to MC some.

Hmm, level 28. I wonder if I can take that level 28 5 person mission alone now. I was having real trouble with it at 27th level since I kept drawing agro from multiple groups.

Playing Champions Online has changed my view of MMOs in general. Every MMO should have a costume designer, and give you fast travel right away. Seriously, why do you have to wait twenty levels to learn how to ride a freaking horse?

Agreed. That is one thing I liked about DDO. You basically stayed in one city, nothing was ever more than a few minutes run from where you were.

I'd imagine the costume editor requires a ton of effort to do properly.

Edit: I sent you a friend invite in game by the way.

Well, much of the work for a costume editor (making the actual models and skins for the characters and the various costume pieces, and making it all fit together) in, say, World of Warcraft is already done. Blizzard would still need to make each piece dynamically colorable, and admittedly I don't know how hard that would be, but the actual content already exists.

I said the same thing six years ago when City of Heroes launched.

Same developers as CO, of course.




-k

CoH doesn't give you your travel power immediately, though (or at least it didn't when I played). IIRC, I was able to take Hover (very slow flight) at level 10, and proper Flight at 20. Champions Online gives you a travel power that will carry you through the rest of the game (even if you don't take the optional upgrades) at level 5.

You got to pick your power in CoH, I know super speed and flight were two of the options. I think it had a gymnastics type option and a jumping option as well as a couple others maybe. The problem was that flight was painfully slow, like almost slower than just walking slow.

Aheh, I forget that you normally have to take Hover first.

I have the 60 month veteran reward that lets me take the "full" version of travel powers at level 6, instead of level 14 when they normally unlock. Also, they DID considerably increase the speed of Hover a little while back, to where with a few speed enhancers it's almost the speed of regular flight.

But I was referring more about the costume creator, which blew people away back in 2004 when it debuted.



-k

Yes, CoX's costume creator is also pretty awesome. I don't remember it in enough detail to compare it to CO's costume creator, but I remember I had a lot of fun just designing costumes for my characters.