State of the Game 2018

nyghtshroude

At best, this game is on the back burner. Despite popularity of super heroes, this game does not have as many players. While we get a costume every once in a while, it's been a few years since we got any new missions or areas. Around two. I think that this game is on the last days and it's sad. I will miss this game when it's finally closed, and sadder is that the game could have more content but it's not a priority. I think if this game used Marvel we would see more players. Not as many know about the HERO Games system.

Here are a few things to think of:

Power Sets:
Water
Plant
Shape changing

New powers within power sets:
More demon summoning
Necromancer themed powers

colonelwing

Cryptic owns the Champions ip, the game will be up for as long as STO and NW are alive.

Water powers: Not possible, due to engine limitations.
Shape shifting: Is already in the game.
Necromancer themed powers: Already in the game.
Demon summoning: Already in the game.

Have a good (dooms)day.

jonsills

MORE demon summoning and necromancy??

You do get that we're supposed to be superHEROES, right? Not WoW wizards?

bulgarex

I don't think a majority of gamers today understand the conventions of superhero comics. They're just not as popular as they used to be; and while movies based on them currently are, they don't offer a large enough sample size to fully convey the core concepts (and some of those movies don't follow those concepts themselves). Indeed, people in the hobby now most often do come to a game like this from WoW or something similar, and want to play what's familiar to them. It doesn't help that a lot of the content in Champions Online tends to reinforce that impression.

spinnytop

What a low effort "state of the game, no actually it's just a doom thread" post...​​

magpieuk2014

bulgarex wrote: »

I don't think a majority of gamers today understand the conventions of superhero comics. They're just not as popular as they used to be; and while movies based on them currently are, they don't offer a large enough sample size to fully convey the core concepts (and some of those movies don't follow those concepts themselves). Indeed, people in the hobby now most often do come to a game like this from WoW or something similar, and want to play what's familiar to them. It doesn't help that a lot of the content in Champions Online tends to reinforce that impression.

Well, CO's limitations mean that it's difficult to make agility-based characters, which rules out a number of prominent hero archetypes and many of the energy/elemental and magic ones do end up bearing a great deal of resemblance to Cleric/Wizard classes..... in many respects CO is Neverwinter gameplay in a contemporary setting, rather than being a Hero game.

sgtken60

Well, I am going to add my 2 cents. As a newer player, (stopped twice due personal reasons), I really enjoy this game. Is it perfect? No, but I never have played a "perfect" online game. But Ultima Online was close IMO.

Is the game "doomed"? Only one who knows that for sure are the owners. I have been playing online games since the late 1990s and I have seen a lot of games go bye-bye. In fact I was playing Wildstar and World of Warships, before giving CO a retry, one is closing, the other one I have learned to hate.

But I do not foresee this game closing, because it is not "Marvel" or because Hero Games is not that well known. Player populations in ALL games go up and down, heck I have a hard believing that Ultima Online is still going.

Would I like to see new stuff in the Game? Sure I think we all would, but would it bring in more players? I am not sure about that, and I am not sure if I want to see a huge migration of new players.

I can see that opening up a whole new can of worms for the game, from servers being stable to griefers driving some of us nuts. So I hope the original poster will really give this game a chance, I think they will learn to at least like it.

theravenforce

I don't know how long the OP has been in CO, but the place we are in now, in 2018 is definitely NOT back burner status.

If you want back burner realness, go back to 2011 - 2012.

xacchaeus

colonelwing wrote: »

Cryptic owns the Champions ip, the game will be up for as long as STO and NW are alive.

Water powers: Not possible, due to engine limitations.

if CoH, an older version of the same engine can do water power, so can this one. the reason it took so long in CoH was because of the fear of P-man and his sidekick squirt... but they did eventually

sistersilicon

theravenforce wrote: »

I don't know how long the OP has been in CO, but the place we are in now, in 2018 is definitely NOT back burner status.

If you want back burner realness, go back to 2011 - 2012.

Ah, yes, the days of “Here’s an entire content update we’d normally deliver in two months, drip-fed over two years because we’ve scheduled NW and an STO expansion almost as large as the base game to launch six weeks apart. Now to take a big sip of water and slide CO into in Maintenance Mode—“ [gets blindsided by City of Heroes closure]

lezard21

Can't we get a forum bot that automatically detects and changes any "Game is going to shut down" thread title into "I don't have friends and I'm not happy and I blame the game for not filling up that void in my life"?​​

riverocean

I still think CO's developers should consider making C-Store powersets. That is power-sets that must be purchased in order to be used. That would justify the cost of designing new powers/animations to those who hold the purse strings. In much the same way that sales of new ships keep Star Trek Online afloat.

I realize many players are against that sort of proposal. But at the end of the day CO is a business and the cost of new new content or powers has to be justified somehow. And if the day ever comes when new power sets become C-store items, I won't be shocked.

lezard21

riverocean wrote: »

I realize many players are against that sort of proposal. But at the end of the day CO is a business and the cost of new new content or powers has to be justified somehow. And if the day ever comes when new power sets become C-store items, I won't be shocked.

I'm all aboard this idea and I've been so since years ago. Anyone who complains about it is either a 14 year old playing with his mom's credit card or an outright idiot who doesn't understand how a business works. Specially in this game considering that you can purchase store currency with ingame currency.​​

colonelwing

xacchaeus wrote: »

if CoH, an older version of the same engine can do water power, so can this one. the reason it took so long in CoH was because of the fear of P-man and his sidekick squirt... but they did eventually

Sorry, but this is what the developers told us, when we asked for water powers (in.. 2013?)

broadnax

colonelwing wrote: »

xacchaeus wrote: »

if CoH, an older version of the same engine can do water power, so can this one. the reason it took so long in CoH was because of the fear of P-man and his sidekick squirt... but they did eventually

Sorry, but this is what the developers told us, when we asked for water powers (in.. 2013?)

That's what Cryptic said when they ran City of Heroes as well. After Paragon Studios took over, we got water powers. Perhaps this iteration of Cryptic's engine can't do it, I don't know. But CoH eventually got a number of things we were told could not be done.

That said, this is a different game. I enjoy it quite a bit, but would really like more mission content, even if we do not get new areas (though that would be cool as well ). I'm not even talking about changing the level cap, but perhaps more options at various levels so that our characters have more varied paths for leveling.

I would love to see water powers and plant powers (we have the costume parts, but no powers to go with them).

No, the game is not dying, and it is a fun game. But there is no harm in throwing out ideas and asking for thing that could make the game even more enjoyable. Doing so constructively is important, however.

spinnytop

sistersilicon wrote: »

theravenforce wrote: »

I don't know how long the OP has been in CO, but the place we are in now, in 2018 is definitely NOT back burner status.

If you want back burner realness, go back to 2011 - 2012.

Ah, yes, the days of “Here’s an entire content update we’d normally deliver in two months, drip-fed over two years because we’ve scheduled NW and an STO expansion almost as large as the base game to launch six weeks apart. Now to take a big sip of water and slide CO into in Maintenance Mode—“ [gets blindsided by City of Heroes closure]

Actually I think raven is referencing the time period when we didn't get so much as a single line of patch notes, no changes to the game whatsoever, and the game was basically in a state of stasis for like 2 years. Around that time drip-fed content would have been exciting! ​​

flyingfinn

CoX game engine was all superior compared to CO. The glorious amount of the tights we could wear there. And the mitten hands.
So if they can't add the simple things like tights here, i have no doubts when they say they can't add powers.
And the "can't" doesn't mean it's impossible, it's just behind ginormous amount of work.

sistersilicon

flyingfinn wrote: »

CoX game engine was all superior compared to CO. The glorious amount of the tights we could wear there. And the mitten hands.
So if they can't add the simple things like tights here, i have no doubts when they say they can't add powers.
And the "can't" doesn't mean it's impossible, it's just behind ginormous amount of work.

In CO’s case, “can’t” means “all the people who can are working on games with external expectations for population and revenue”.

markhawkman

flyingfinn wrote: »

CoX game engine was all superior compared to CO. The glorious amount of the tights we could wear there. And the mitten hands.
So if they can't add the simple things like tights here, i have no doubts when they say they can't add powers.
And the "can't" doesn't mean it's impossible, it's just behind ginormous amount of work.

Well, "can't" means they need to make new assets... which happens every now and then.

spinnytop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPiMVbyvUBY
So that's what water powers looked like in CoH. That's really nothing special. I thought people were actually talking about water with physics and stuff. Most of what I'm seeing here looks like the Wind powerset.​​

nyghtshroude

spinnytop wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPiMVbyvUBY
So that's what water powers looked like in CoH. That's really nothing special. I thought people were actually talking about water with physics and stuff. Most of what I'm seeing here looks like the Wind powerset.​​

Just color wind powers blue and you have water powers. I was just hoping for a shark summon

spinnytop

nyghtshroude#9048 wrote: »

Just color wind powers blue and you have water powers. I was just hoping for a shark summon

And what would this shark do when you summon him on the sidewalk outside of a bank that's being robbed? >:C

It would need to be like... summoned inside of a floating globe of water... like that uh... bubble flight... O3O​​