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CO vs. CoX: storytelling
eirajaeger
Posts: 2 Arc User
No, I don't want to start a fight, but I do want (civil, well-thought-out) opinions from people who have played both.
There are two things I love about CoH that I'm afraid I will never find in another MMO.
1) Super nutso character customization. Including non-stripper-esque outfits for women, and also a wide range of realistic and fantastic skin colours. In other words, my character doesn't have to be white, and if she's female she doesn't have to dress like eye candy.
2) Missions that actually feel like stories. The saddest thing about losing CoH, for me, is not knowing how some of these mission arcs will end. That's what kept me playing, and the lack of that is what made me give up on many, many other MMOs. Everywhere else, I felt like every quest was "go kill X number of Y, and bring back their Zs". Over. and over. and over again.
So how does CO stack up in either of those areas? I could give up on MMOs completely now that CoX is going away, but if CO or some other game has those features I might just keep playing.
There are two things I love about CoH that I'm afraid I will never find in another MMO.
1) Super nutso character customization. Including non-stripper-esque outfits for women, and also a wide range of realistic and fantastic skin colours. In other words, my character doesn't have to be white, and if she's female she doesn't have to dress like eye candy.
2) Missions that actually feel like stories. The saddest thing about losing CoH, for me, is not knowing how some of these mission arcs will end. That's what kept me playing, and the lack of that is what made me give up on many, many other MMOs. Everywhere else, I felt like every quest was "go kill X number of Y, and bring back their Zs". Over. and over. and over again.
So how does CO stack up in either of those areas? I could give up on MMOs completely now that CoX is going away, but if CO or some other game has those features I might just keep playing.
Post edited by eirajaeger on
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I left CoH years ago bored to tears, and pvp had gotten stale.
When I was still at CoH, CO was touted as the CoH Killer, and my experience has never been that.
Really it comes down to is there enough good in CO for you to put up with all the bad, whether it be the lousy customer service, patches that break more than they fix, etc.
My top 5 video games writers:
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
Yes, Champs has this. Only thing you might find a bit odd is that some costume pieces get kinda deformed if you don't want the default gigantic boobs. But, there's plenty of non-stripper outfits available.
There's a few story arcs in the game that are nice, but there is also lots of "filler" missions that are "kill a bunch of these guys."
There's also the Adventure Packs/Comic Series, which are basically big story arcs on their own. Some of them are really great. Resistance is one of my favorites. The Adventure Packs/Comic Series can be played at any level above 11, and can be played multiple times.
2) Worse
CO's appearance customization is for the most part superior and more extensive than CoX's, with a larger number, selection and options for clothing items and accessories, as well as special elements such as robot, beast or monster parts, etc (with even more from the store). The only real downside compared to CoX is the auras and power color. Characters in CO have no aura options outside specific powers that have them (some always active, others only in combat, with no option to change them), and CO has no white, black or dark color options for power customization (some powers may have white, black or dark "default" colors hardcoded into them, but we don't get those as customization options).
Another peeve in regards to customization is that CO has no thigh high stiletto heeled boots (but CoX does). CoX also has a more extensive selection of facial "skin" types, which CO focuses more on facial sliders and head accessories for head/facial distinction. I've also heard some mention certain thigh options from CoX but I don't remember much about that since I haven't played CoX in years and only use thight options occasionally.
As for the story... yeah, in CoX they took the story more seriously than in CO. And IMO it was the only thing about CoX that was better than CO.
PS: IMPORTANT Warning about CO's costume pieces if you've never played before. Sometime back the game went through a "steamline character creation" effort which removes a huge selection of the pieces available for characters created by new players. If you're a new player and you create a character you will only see a limited selecton initially of the actual pieces available for characters in CO, BUT...
The pieces are still still there--Don't judge the game by that intial glimpse.
You we gain full access to all standard pieces once you achieve lv 10 or so. I can't confirm the exact criteria that must be met to unlock the pieces, since I have been playing for a while and don't suffer from this limitation. But once you play for a while and manage to unlock all the pieces they will remain unlocked for all future characters, as well as current ones if you wish to modify them.
As for stories - the thing is, CO never took itself seriously until more recently. It launched with a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor, in-jokes, and nearly slapstick-worthy antics. It's gotten a bit more serious since then, but much of the old stuff remains.
That reminds me - for any former CoX player that wants the game to look less cartoony - disable the comic outlining in the graphics options.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
I don't understand what's missing. Maybe somebody could explain it?
~edit~
YES!!! I hate that outlining stuff! It looks soo terrible/tacky. Also recommend ramping up the gamma to give the game more contrast and a darker feel.
It's a shame you can't customize the GUI...
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
missions? what missions do you speak of? its all about alerts!
/sarcasm
but seriously the ngihthawk missionis the first real mission weve had in what, how many months? on the issue of story telling, this is a large part of the problem
Throw my immersion in the air and shoot it with a bazooka, is what I'm saying. I hate when mmos do this. Especially since the real champs lore is so intriguing... If they would just let us see more of it.
RIP Caine
Trying to decipher Jaybezz's insanity is a futile attempt. He makes long elaborate posts with no points, themes or understanding. And he understands even less of mechanics.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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Honestly, if you like to read stories, CoX was where you were at. The sheer variety of missions has been unmatched anywhere else as far as I can see. Even though I got to the point where I had to cancel my subscription and even "free to play" wasn't enough to lure me back, I can still honestly say I haven't read all of if.
Emphasis on "read." A whole lot of the story was pretty much in text, and what really drove me away eventually was the fact that the missions themselves ended up clones of each other with different skins on the walls and enemies. Although I do miss Architect a bit.
Speaking of which, the Architect system isn't in Champions, but is in Cryptic's other products. You can make your own missions in Star Trek Online and it is an advertised feature of Neverwinter.
There are enough regular missions to take you all the way to the level cap of 40. A lot less reading is required, and more of the focus is getting you to the action than anything. You can pretty much solo you way to 40 with occasional temporary teaming for optional open missions and "5-man" lairs. However, unlike the old CoX, I can honestly say I have done every single bit of it, at least 3 times. The four adventure packs and two comic series are repeatable and do a spectacular job of showing you the story instead of trying to force you to read it. (Yes, that means cutscenes.) But I think the Cryptic team has sworn off trying to make any more.
I also believe Cryptic might have learned something from the Architect system and the way players were abusing it. The Alert system reminds me a lot of the leveling farms that everyone in the Architect building were repeating endlessly. With each Alert, you got a map (or two) full of tougher and higher value minions with a signature villain at the opposite end that gives you a really big XP and money reward for a couple minutes of fighting. Unlike the Architect crowd, however, there's a matching system (a queue) so you don't even have to form a team first if you don't want to. Solo, you'll get a different set of teammates each run. The XP alerts and some of the more recent custom alerts have failure conditions, like a time limit or a respawn lockout. But there isn't much of a penalty for failure except not getting the reward at the end. Queue again and you'll probably get better teammates.
The one thing the Alert system is not good for is gear and loot. Alert players are usually XP farming with their second or third characters and using Nemesis Heirloom gear, or one of the gear sets from the Questionite store which levels up with the hero. If it's your first time, and the mission system really doesn't appeal to you, you could probably spend $5 on Zen, exchange some of it for Questionite to buy one of the sets, and still have enough left for a 4-pack of boost enhancers or healing devices.
Re: Costumes
First time players appear to have a, uh, "streamlined" version of the costume creator to get them into the game proper. However once you get any hero to level 10, the full costume creator is every bit as super-nusto as the CoX version. In fact, the same team created both the CoX version and the Champions version. Black? No problem. Yellow? No problem. Blue, Green, Red or Purple? No problem. Long Pants or Long Skirt? No problem. Skirt on a man? Well, I've done that.
On another note, certain assets may be scaled up by default, but the scaling options are really robust as well. Specifically, your ladies aren't stuck wearing padded bras and implants if you don't want that.
Also keep in mind that if you are a free players, you only get your main inventory slot and 1 other (for free - others can be bought via the C-Store). Learn where you can sell unwanted gear and where the various transit hubs are. There's usually a Superjet landing pad in every zone, (otherwise there's some other means of traveling between zones, like the submarine in Lemuria). Every 5 levels, starting at 10, you'll get an equipment kit which has some useful stuff in it - there's a very good chance you'll get a "Teleport to Ren-Center" item in there, which can take you back to the game's main hub at anytime. Also consider getting the Penthouse hideout - you can travel to your hideout from anywhere in the gameworld, but the penthouse has the distinction of letting you fly out its balcony to travel to Millennium City, (other hideouts only let you return to where you came from).
Another thought - there is a resource limit for free players - 250G. If you start getting close to that, consider buying some items from the Auction House that can be re-sold later.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
1) CO imo has flatly better customization - this is largely because CO is in many ways the house COH built, everything the COH costume system does, CO does 'and then some'*. Note that you need to get level 10 to allow all the silver options to show up, and once you have those there's still a bajillion costume unlocks out there, both free and paid.
2) Here's where I think you'll be disappointed. There are some good stories in CO, but they're kind of few and far between at present. I think this can and will change in the near future, but at present a lot of our content is of the WoW-style "go here, smack that" style without a whole heck of a lot of interesting story to it. This has been an irritation of mine for years so I'll avoid getting on my soapbox like I've done in other threads on the subject.
Suffice to say, check out Demonflame, Aftershock, Whiteout and Resistance to get some actual story. Also the Vibora Bay Crisis is pretty good. They aren't perfect, but they are at least imo pointing in the right direction.
*I will note however that the art style may put some off. That's not the same as the underlying costume system though.
Check out my Champions Online webcomic in progress!
Annoying people since 2009!
In all fairness though MI IS/WAS in the PnP. Though I most definitely agree with your post's general point.
The main problem I have is with how much camp there is in the game.
Denny O'Neil (Batman writer in the 70s, editor for most Bat books in the 90s) said that camp is a one line joke along the lines of "Har. Har. I liked all this stuff when I was a kid and now that I'm over 30, have a divorce, a mild substance abuse problem I'm going to point out how absurd it is". Paraphrase of a direct quote, I should say.
Really, the cape genre is the one of the one genres that you can be 100% earnest and sincere when it comes to stories about "good v. evil". I don't mind black and grey stuff in the genre, mind you, however....that isn't camp, now is it? The bad, imho, one line joke.
I did my time in Paragon myself, lots of fond memories of doing different "dark night detective" rp on the roof tops of king's row, and am saddened by the los of City Of. But I'm also excited and hopeful about all the Paragonites--paragonions, paragonians?-- coming into Millennium City. This is a an opportunity in growth to our community--and hopefully getting those Paragon Studios guys with Cryptic-- and our game
And specifically writing. With the influx of a player base used to and expectant of sincere, payed straight, rich story telling Cryptic will have an eye on that and even use the 100 plus source books that the Champions IP has!
And this is another thing...love or hate the NightHawk event/mission arc/ lair I thought the writing was pretty good, I didn't see any Camp there, and had some emotional investment in the story.
CoH has Trials and Task Force which are strictly team events. So if you are not leading a team you can't read the story. Well even if you want to read that story you never have time to sit and read when 7 more people waiting for you. In CO we have Comic Series/Adventure Packs (same thing, different name) which are best story driven content on a superhero MMO. First of all you can solo them so you can read their story, nit pick little details as your heart's desire than run it again with a team. After finishing Demonflame first time I understand RPG part of MMOs.
Well you were unfortunate to run it for the first time with a team. Luckily you won't miss much of the story thanks to cut scenes and voice overs. Instead of warehouse/office number X, you enter different maps, so you feel your story progress. In CoH that visual distinction more clear in Strike Forces or later TFs (Statesman, Positron Rewamp etc.).
While I agree about hunting missions with OP, I have to say CoH has them the wrong way. I can't remember how many times I waited days to drop a hunt mission to carry on with contact's story.
More importantly in CO, the hero I created is mine. Not Fire/Fire Blaster #198746524. I pick his powers, looks, how they power will effect the critters in game. I don't even have to play an AT because I want to play with Psychic powers. I can be a telepathic tank or earth blaster.
On positive side, as an on and off player, I am pleased to see Champions Online going better and better between my visits. CoH was fine but after years only thing keeping me there was my friends. Especially after tasting freedom of making my own heroes, CO will stay as my main Superhero MMO.
Okay let me say little somethings about visuals than you can go. Well I am with you on one thing, other than their bodies CO female characters look a bit downer beside their male counterparts. Males on the other hand... well they look hot, what can I ask for more?
The lore does contain a lot of Camp.
My MMO experience has only been Perfect World, WoW, CO, and some STO. CO is nowhere as grindy as WoW or PW. There is some grind but its not like "go kill 75 of everything, one at a time".
Costume customization is awesome in CO. There are a few examples where design is difficult. Some tops do not have matching bottoms, making a seemless concept difficult at times. I know Tendril legs exist but finding which Leg configuration is required to use them is a real pain. Not every part is listed in the Find Part tab, even some Event costume parts are amazingly elusive. The gradiant parts do not work well together, you have to go in and manually rework where the fade is to avoid a stupid looking stripe. Despite the few exceptions, customization is great in CO.
I find CO to be VERY Silver Age. It's what most people think of when they think of comics, so it's a very casual friendly design choice and the game mechanics seem to follow that choice as well. CoH took its storytelling inspiration more from the Iron Age/Dark Age/Moder Age (or whatever you want to call it) which strikes the nostalgia factor of many of the modern gamers who are/were also into comics, as that's the era when most of them were into comics. That being said this asthetic was more Jim Lee than Rob Leifeld so it represented the best that this era had to offer (yes, I use the word had, because guys like Joss Whedon and Garth Ennis are ushering in a new age of comics).
My personal preferance was CoH because of this, because it was what I thought of when I thought of comics. I appreciate the CO asthetic and I'm definatly going to give the game a shot but CoH will always be my first comic MMO love. Mabey I'll find a new appreciation for the Jack Kirby era of comics.
The thing is though, some people will take it to be a parody, as in making fun of the subject matter instead of showing respect for the subject matter. There's a difference between a parody and a homage, and CO often crosses that line into parody and comes dangerously close to Batman and Robin and Batman Forever territory.
I think people look at CO's art style - something Cryptic chose - rather then really looking at the stories being encountered by the characters. So because the characters look cartoony it somehow makes people believe the stories are cartoony, but they're really not.
Or there's times where it edges away from parody and just.... References.
Referencing on it's own is... Bad.
Like the Foxbat mission where you basically walk onto the set of Anchorman. It's just... Huh. Okay. I get the reference and recognise that it was funny, but... um... yeah. It was funny, but seeing it repeated in parts here kinda... Doesn't keep the funny going, you know? It's just making us recall a good time we've had prior to this.
There's also Hi Pan. I am not going to mention him again. You will know what I am talking about when I speak of the problems involving Hi Pan. It is unnecessary to elaborate on this.
However, one thing that Champions does have going for it is that few of the missions are of the collect twenty bear posteriors variety that is common to MMOs... Some are, but not so many that it's actually noticeable.
And, to be honest, most of the characters, as much as they are developed, are quite fun and interesting to see, even if there is very little character progression for them (although this is mainly so that it's the player who progresses their own character in their OWN mind, I suspect, thus making it less about the setting and more about what you make the setting feel like.).
Honestly, most of the problems I can see with missions could be solved if we had a stickied thread in suggestions forum for Mission Ideas, where people discuss ideas for future missions and debate how sensible they are yet still looking fun.
Oh,and slightly offtopic, but I do wish female body settings were a bit looser allowing easier capabilty to make childlike, flat, or fat figures, with a less hip-tilty pose, since the excuse of "in comics they're all supermodel-figures" doesn't really apply when you actually read comics outside of DC and Marvel, which although are the majority are not the be all and end all of comicdom, and Marvel especially has had a wide variety of non.... uh... What do you even CALL that shape?
The Spawn animated series HBO did says "Hi there."
Yep. That's another complaint I have about Champs. Story telling should be taken seriously. The First Ward arc over in COH is by far some of the best story telling I've ever seen in an MMO. TSW has great story telling too. Champ's story lines are nothing but ironic hipster "lol gais! I'm writing an comic book story." jokes. And the joke is on us.
I've read some of eddiewoods posts on this site and I too am a CoH player migrating to CO. I'm trying to keep a little more of an open mind than he is but I have to fully agree with him on this one. Some of the stories can make me feel like I'm being directly being made fun of by the writers for being a comic book fan. That's a definate turn off.
If anyone honestly feels like they are being made fun of by the game for being a comic book fan then perhaps the problem lies in their sensibilities, not the game itself. Additionally if you're looking for more serious stories then you can always run the Demonflame + Aftershock series or even Serpent Lantern. I'd recommend Resistance but the MacGruber joke might "offend" someone. Whiteout is right out.
Eef.
Also, do me a favor. lol go level up to 15 while avoiding any of the big trouble in little china/clockwork orange/anchorman content. Lemme know how it works out for you.
RIP Caine
Unfortunately, I don't think that the devs even read the PnP lore books or care what those books say. Some might now, but I doubt they did back when the bulk of the game's missions and in-game lore was worked on years ago.
To be honest, I've played most of this game (and continue to do so) much the same way shieldtower suggests that we do--by ignoring the actual story and focusing almost exclusively on the game play (and costume creation :redface:) instead. Which is a real crappy way to have to play a RPG (which by definition should have a focus on the element of "story").
I love CoX for it's Writing and music.
I love CO for it's costume creation and combat.
Here's an example.
Spoiler!
In CoX with their Dark Astoria revamp there is a huge mission arc for the whole zone. It's about a cult and a dark being that is increasing in power that you must stop. Within the arc you are going back in time, finding about what lead to this, and by the end when this being is eating up entire cities instead of individuals, you are gathering both heroes and villains alike to fight by your side to make a drastic push to the center of this being to destroy it. Doing it all as a Villain, really was a blast. All of that through text, small cutscenes and set pieces.
(What sucks is that my subscription ended right when I was on the final push, so it kicked me out. Silly VIP content.)
Also, the whole premise of City of Villains swept me off my feet once I finished what I had to do. The whole Survival of the Fittest thing was beautifully wrote throughout the whole game. Having started broken out of prision to be put into a group of other Chosen Ones, to beat them at every other turn to finally make it all the way to Lord Recluse. THEN having the guts to beat an alternate timeline Recluse, taking his mask and giving it to your world Recluse, pretty much says "Hey, don't mess with me, I'm better than all of you."
/Spoiler!
The writing in that game is the best I've ever seen.
Champions on the other hand is like a Saturday-morning Superhero Cartoon, and I can live with that. It's two different genres. CO is happy and care free while CoX is edgey and serious.
I do want better writing in CO. Almost everything has been "Do these missions in this area, and then do this last one where you fight a boss."
Vibora Bay Apocalypse did it well and most of VB as well.
Like, I just did this "No Comics For Old Men" or whatever. That was just...it's no even worth reviewing as a story and I found it exceptionally insulting. It's not fun, it's not camp, it's just rude. It doesn't make sense that anyone would need a super human person to rescue a bunch of comics.
So what I did - and this is just me and my imagination - I retconned the story to be files of evidence stolen from a prosecutor. Instead of destroying them, the idiot minions stashed them around the city and hired even more clueless minions as guards.
Dumb? Yes. But not as dumb.
Saturday Morning Cartoon is apt. Whereas I find that CoH's storylines are more in line modern superhero themed cartoons and comics.
It's not a deal-killer for me, but it's a challenge for sure. Ironically, I did sometimes wish that CoH had more villains threatening to steal Mt. Rushmore type stories. This was because sometimes those stories were so heavy and dark, you wondered how your character could survive the experience without going crazy.
I do hope it gets a little better and with one less hero-themed game, the stories get upgraded. I don't think it should be all NolanGritty(tm) but it needs to be less SuperFriends. Actually, if the writing staff sat down and watched Batman: Brave and the Bold and Justice League: Unlimited with a heavy dose of Avengers and X-Men Evolution, I think it'd be spot on.
E.
Just read "Champions Universe" or even Thundrax's Lore Primer. There. Is. A. Lot. Of .Cool. Stuff.
Writers will be writers and artists will be artist, but I think there should most definitely be some oversight.
IMHO before any new content is 'penned', and the writing happens, very often or so I understand in general in gaming, after all the game-mechanics stuff is done, that it be required to have the latest PDFs from the PnP open and do a ctrl+f for whatever they're going to be doing with it.
And what I mean is.... well.. here this is what Gravitar used to look like and here she is now in game! I can appreciate alternate interpretations, especially with the need for costume pieces and such...but...this is just a little bit too much. NightHawk 's redesign looks great. No more captain duckhat...not that anyone ever calls him that to his face.
The main point is not so much silliness or being wacky, the point is being sincere, even in your silliness, about how you tell a Superhero/Vigilante story with the art, mechanics, text, cut-scenes and voice-overs.
Like I said, if you can't ignore the jokes then the problem isn't the game, it's you.
I've also been able to out-level Westside while avoiding more than half of what it has to offer (including what you mentioned) since long before Smash alerts were even a thing.
Do ME a favor and try doing that too; let me know how it works out for you. (insert inane emoticon here)
I will say that the Devs have shown them selves to be bigger movie fans than comic book fans. The in jokes are mostly based on movies and TV shows and Whiteout at the start feels like someone just watched the Thing. Where are the references to comic books.
They do make use of some of the Champions IP but there is so much more they could use.
[SIGPIC]http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd175/Fifer71/mandrakesigmark3.jpg[/SIGPIC]
Champions has the lore Cryptic..make it so :O
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I dream of a game that has Coh challenge at least, IE harder than Champions is. A lot of people crying that the game is too hard now are going to be in for a shock when the CoH people start saying to beef things up especially for teaming.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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Some people say this game is too hard?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
FOUNDRY.
Siiigh.
GIVE US FOUNDRY
(For CoH players, Foundry is basically Mission Architect on Star Trek: Online and the upcoming Neverwinter. In STO's case, it's carefully designed to be low on rewards so there's no point to farming it)
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Really. It's IMPOSSIBLE for me to hate a game that references Big Trouble in Little China.
It might make me roll my eyes, it might make me a little tired after the 2,478th time, it might make me start to question my sanity... but I'll never be able to flat-out actually hate it.
I was @Curveball in City of Heroes.
It is that. Even with only 3 characters you can make 4,380 Dilithium a day, in about 15 minutes time. At the rate on the Di exchange last time I played, last week... That's about 28 zen a day, for 15 min's work.
The foundry is a great idea, the only way it's exploited is because of the daily mission you can get. Without that, there would be no reason to have the quickie missions.
I don't see why the humor and camp of CO makes it objectively worse, like some folks seem to imply.
I suppose, but you can get Dilithium just about as easily doing... anything else. PvP, that daily satellite repair, possibly the warzone in Ker'rat (I don't recall how viable that is after changes).
In any case, the trick is, simply, making Foundry no more rewarding than anything else. Possibly less so.
Hell, I'd take 'no rewards whatsoever' if it would mean not facing the constant destructive changes made by devs like happened in CoH.
I played CoH for 2-3 months ENTIRELY due to my love of Mission Architect, and left, finally, due to frustration with constant removal of cool bits that destroyed my (non-farm) missions. (And lack of adding anything substantial)
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Also, the "humor" people have mentioned? Have not laughed once. The writing is a massive, unfunny, unoriginal mess for the majority of the game. Only a select few things, which are pretty much the post launch content, are even worth reading. I hope they fired whoever wrote the launch content.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪[/i][/center]
Obviously this game isn't for people who can't come to terms with the fact that it doesn't take itself super seriously. Luckily for people like that there is a glut of high fantasy MMOs out there that are just chock full of pretentious storytelling.
But I'm really puzzled by why folks thought CoH was much better.
I mean, one reason I loved Mission Architect was that I wouldn't have to put up with another godawful dev mission.
Maybe it's taste, familiarity, nostalgia, or I'm too critical, but holding CoH as being well-written at all boggles my mind.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
All of the low level missions I'm getting from Kodiak are... campy, yes, but they're all told in a context that makes sense, and there's continuity.
Before the Atlas Park revamp I would have said the CO low-level missions were better than CoH. To be honest. Though the dialog is cringe-worthy at times, and they could use a copy editor...
I was @Curveball in City of Heroes.
Those comic books and examples you mention are not the norm. They are either humorous comic books intended as parodies of the (otherwise serious) genre, or specific instances of attempts at humor or campiness in otherwise serious comics or characters (Lex Luthor stealing pies).
There is a difference between some (as in "not all", i.e. "the exception, not the norm") comic book stories being campy or humorous and presenting the entire genre as a campy or humorous mockery (which is what CO's story does).
Or to use an actual example, just because Austin Powers is a fictional spy that does not put him on par to James Bond or Mission Impossible when talking about serious spy films/characters/fiction rather than just parodies of them. Those examples you give are Austin Powers--they are NOT what people talk about when talking about serious spy fiction.
Also, Austin Powers is actually funny. So is The Tick. CO? Not so much...
Having little or no rewards for Foundry missions would make the whole implementation of it completely pointless for anything but a niche segment of the player population. There is a reason the original NWN 1 was so successful back in its time--it was real, full fledged UGC, with no holds barred. None of this watered down crap.
In order for UGC to be meaningful it should at least provide comparable rewards to regular content.
Honestly, the reward wasn't why I played MA all the time in CoX. It was because it was FUN.
I did PvP in STO despite minimal rewards. Because it was fun.
All rewards in CoX MA did was keep me from bothering to do anything else.
I mean, consider all the level 40 folks. In CO, there's pretty much no endgame. Yeah, you can grind for silver champion gear which is better... but for what? The game isn't that hard, pvp is almost nonexistant.
I've deleted most of my level 40 guys simply out of boredom and to try other stuff. If I actually had UGC to 'do something,' I'd get way more mileage and have some sort of endgame.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
At this point... I was wrong. There is no way to set rewards for UGC without creating an incentive to exploit and farm. And then you start down a road away from freedom and toward antagonism between devs and players.
I'd much rather have the freedom to make whatever the hell I wanted, regardless of ease or difficulty, and not have to worry about the nerfbat coming 'round.
And I'd much rather have devs feel free to add cool stuff without worrying about balance or farms.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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COH didn't start out with industry leading (that's right, I went there) story telling, but they ended up that way. Camp and cheese are fine, but they should be used *very* sparingly in my opinion. Cryptic still has an opportunity to do something about it.