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City Of Heroes
angelphoenix12
Posts: 313 Arc User
today marks a sad day, a year ago city of heroes was taken away from the fans and myself who liked this game. /em torch
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/em torch
Today I ran my Unity Dailies in my best Statesman cosplay costume on my main character, as a tribute.
Gone, but not forgotten.
But the Nightmare presses on.. and I WILL have my day! First, Millennium City..
then.. TITAN CITY!
Here's a playlist of some of my CoX stuff
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO4siYVMA_OS-OgYh_T7Kr8A31qEny7r3
CO is like a Cop sharing resources with the Fire Department and EMT's. While it might not get the same cash amount, it's being preserved because it's needed, and it serves a different purpose.
CoX was treated like a Marine Infantryman. He's awesome for what he is, but NCSoft also had a Navy Seal and a Green Beret- and they only could afford the resources for 2 slots on the 'team', so the Marine Infantryman was 'dismissed'. I don't agree with the decision, but NCSoft is a Korean company at its core- and Asian gamers are a different animal than Westerners, where it's all 'next big thing, pay to win, advance and throw away'.
A Marine Infantryman doesn't suck by any means, but if someone's choosing a team- they'll take the better of 3 awesome things. CO isn't really 'better' than CoX, it just looks better and plays faster and has a more robust character creator (my opinion). But had CO AND CoX been under NCSoft? CO'd have been buried in its third year.
NCSoft apparently thought Guild Wars 2 was going to be a monster success and pushed aside the 'least profitable' game with the 'least chance of expansion'... or so it's claimed. I'm not even sure I believe it. I've heard people go as far as to claim that NCSoft is racist against Americans, or someone at Paragon wasn't going to do 'pay to win' and 'lockbox/grabbag' with NCSoft. I can't be sure, no one really can except the people involved. Hell, last I heard- even Paragon didn't know what happened.
I didn't play the game a lot- I got a basic feel for it, but I kinda stuck with CO because of RP situations that kept me more entertaining (I'd rather be creative and write, and I had more friends here). Granted, it had a lot of things I'd love to see in CO (like the way powers are done, but with CO's combat pace; the general tone of the game, and villain side options).
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!
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
I disliked CoX characters save for their more lifelike faces. Otherwise they were hideous. Well, animations were better than in CO.
I disliked clunky and slow gameplay with power recharges. This one thing made me never stick with CoX.
But it had heroic feel. I never feel heroic in CO no matter how many mooks I can steamroll at once, because I simply can't care about anything in this game storyline.
CO has very little immersion for me. And, even this little immersion it has, it's because of PnP books, NOT because of what can be seen in the mmo.
You don't really get that as much here IMO. I wish we had CoX's faces here just not as flat as they were.
But I love having fingers!
I never made it far in CoX, but it had one of the best storylines of any MMO I've ever played.
I always feel like I'm the only one in the game that really, really loves the animations (and music, for that matter). City had good animations, and I never really felt a need to complain about them, but when I saw Champs' animations, I had a total "WOW!" moment. Especially with Might. And maintain/charge powers while on the move, it all looks really great to me.
Story, Atmosphere, Theme - City
Combat, Customization - Champs
I could get engrossed in City. The different zones all tell a story, not in text, but in landscape. Champs is Saturday morning villain cartoon superhero jazz.
City's combat while fun, was so slow. Champs you can run around do backflips over people while firing your pistols and not standing still.
Still love both though. I visit my home in the Rogue Isles with Titan Icon every once in a while.
It wasn't just the game, they closed the STUDIO.
sound effects, I haven't played a game yet where I left it on for more than an hour. I just find it annoying.As for the music in some games....blecchh.
I turn the radio on and listen to that instead.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
We know. Lord, do we know. And we'll never find out what that secret project that they had in development was either.
That's actually kind of reverse between two games.
Champions have much better, flashier and fluent combat animations. But out-of-combat things like stances, emotes or walks are stiff, artificial. Some are terrible.
CoX combat animations were passable (at best) and sometimes dated (most often), but their emotes, walks and stances were much better.
I played CoH for close to two years at launch. Loved it a lot, especially at first, but the repetitive grind, the horrible cave missions, and the lack of a proper comic book feel (just fighting too many agents; even though I liked many of the factions, there were virtually no villains at launch, and the few villains I faced didn't feel very comic book to me) eventually got to me. Also, I never liked teaming much, and my attempts to run task forces left me frustrated and angry, so I had no interest in playing much of the game's premier content. So eventually I jumped ship for WoW.
As for storytelling: pre-Vibora CO is too cute, but post-Vibora CO comes a lot closer to the flavor sweet spot for me. CoX's tone wasn't traditional supers enough for me -- for some, that's a feature, but I like the genre. The Warshades and Peacebringers felt too much like someone's home SF campaign slapped onto a superhero world at the expense of the setting; at the time, I resented that I had to buy into these archetypes to be considered "epic" (at least by the system).
Despite a few missteps. CoX did a much better job at building and sustaining their world narrative; CO's changed hands too many times during the course of its lifespan, and there have been too many periods where the narrative has been neglected. Very often the writers have shown very little interest in characterization; CoX was worlds better in this department. Sometimes Champions gets it right. Most of the Adventure Packs and Comic Series are good. Albert Zerstoiten in Resistance works beautifully. But then they go and make a mistep like the "mwahaha!" at the end of his soliloquy in the anniversary event and take us back to Superfriends territory, and after the tenth time I hear it, I want to bang my head against a wall. But this is probably my head version of Albert clashing with some of what's published: to me, Destroyer should be chilling. Here's a man who, just to fake his own death, murdered 40,000 people and was quite willing to engineer a meteor strike that could have wiped out human civilization. He's not a mwahaha guy, or if he does, it's to conceal a deeper purpose.
Champions' tools for presenting its stories is better than what I encountered in City by a considerable degree, but the frequently amateurish writing and voice work takes away from their effectiveness. CO should blow away CoX in the storytelling department, but it falls short. Now, I don't mind variation in tone. I like Foxbat and his mission chain. I like having some mission chains that appeal to less serious players, or which lighten the mood. Not everything should be Aftershock or Demonflame. But the recitation of memes, while cute (and I'm guilty of it myself in my own RPG and computer game design work) can and frequently does undercut drama and immersion. The major world narrative -- which in CO's case, is the fight against the two Dr. Destroyers -- should be free of camp and cheese. The end movie of Deathray Demolition is a major violator (and should be replaced).
Defender, as the major NPC of the setting, needs fleshing out badly. We should be getting to know James Harmon more. He's a good, driven man, haunted by childhood memories, whose attempts to be a legacy hero worthy of his heroic forefathers leads him to hold himself up to impossible standards, who deeply loves Bethany Duquesne but is too much of a dork to act on it. Let's see some of his humanity. Mind you players being players, people will always use him as fodder for penetration and beacon jokes. But at least try to show more. Statesman was a douchebag, but at least he was a relatable one.
Also, I feel compelled to point out CoX had its UGC system. We need a Foundry.
Okay. Enough digression. Getting back to the main point, I've kept with CO for well over twice the amount of time I spent in CoX, for a number of reasons: more comic book tone, a better combat system, easier solo play and less grind, and greater ease at finding a community. I'm very sorry CoX is gone, however; I did enjoy the game while I was there, I had quite a few friends who worked on it, and I'm sorry their work is no longer available to play. Also, the CoX players I've met here have largely been pretty good. It's a bitter pill to have to see something you invested so much time in get stripped away for no discernible good reason, and they have and continue to have my sympathies.
Yeah, as much as I love/loved CoH...CO definitely got the feel and look of Might/Super Strength right.
VARIANT
"Nearly all men can withstand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
-Abraham Lincoln-
Lotta 50s, lotta gametime.
I do NOT miss 10 hours / level. My first 50 there took just over *500 hours*. Which I did in ... 7 months? That was a LOT of gameplay time.
I really prefer that with a couple days (hey, I'm not Kenpo to do it in 5 hours
So - yeah. I miss it and I'm sad it's gone, but ... I'm long over it.
I feel like I'm talking about the dinosaur times.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I remember my first Hero...
of course that was years after CoH launched because I was too busy making villains since the launch of CoV
and the newer attacks only highlight the divide because there is a directly comparable move, the knee strike, between street justice in coh and martial arts here. here it is just a straight raising of the rear knee to around chest level(the guy i had using it is tall, but it looked about that high) conversely the street justice version the character pushed forward with their hips and looked like they really struck with their knee, even going through their target....sloppy technique in real life, but it looked like a believable strike, but co's just lacks momentum.
other animations that bugged me is the newer martial arts energy builder, which moves so slow, but with so little feeling of weight or stance that it looks like your character is doing aerobics rather than throwing hard strikes. the stance is too high and there is barely any hip movement for the punches. and the flying kick move has a weird body position that looks like no recognizable martial arts move and looks more like a pro wrestling drop kick...an odd choice.
beyond that most of co's animations are just too clipped and choppy, maybe that is a side effect of the less rooting oriented game, in the real world, we get rooted by committing to movements, if you throw a punch with proper form, you are going to be in place for a second because force comes from your legs, and a weak stance breeds weak hits.
keep in mind, I am a martial a ts nerd, so little things stand out like that...coh's thunder kick bothered me immensely and crane kick's chambering of the striking leg stood out too, but co's animations are the weakest of the 3 superhero mmos.
as per the general gist of the thread, loved coh, still miss it, co works but it wish it was getting more resources from its publisher, dcou just lacks customization, hoping phoenix project works and wish project awakened had gotten bankrolled, as we need a good OFFLINe superhero game that the publisher cant take away from us.
CO wins in a lot of areas but animations are not one of them. I miss BABs' and the newer CoH animators' work, as they really produced awesome animations in that game's later years.
Wow. Really? Took you that long to level? First 50 I can understand, but without some AE Farm, I could be 50 in a couple of days of play time if all I was looking for was to hit max level.
That wasn't CoH, that was all you.
That said, know what CoH had great...STAFF ANIMATIONS! DAGGERS! AWESOME DUAL PISTOL ANIMATIONS LIKE BULLET RAIN! The ability to have Titan Weapons not feel...slooooow.
I know I know...CO has great Staff Animations...oh wait. Daggers...errrm...hold on. Fast giant weapon combat...oh...yeah...ummm. YAY! Well, we do have Hold Out Shot! \o/
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
i like the super strength animations, in coh it was too "axe handle slam" heavy, pre alt animations 3 attacks were variations of the axe handle slam. champs has more big wild swings, it fits the theme better. also i like dragon kick, its more wuxia movie than realistic, but its nice and is a strong move. also i know billz would have stabbed someone for the bestial claw animations, though a few of them have the same issue as martial arts, too slow, and the first move of the 3 hit combo looks like you are picking up change off the sidewalk. as for leveling speed, yeah ae farms were getting people to 50 in a few hours. even playing legit through the content, newer content was paced in such a way that you could go fast. especially for aoe heavy builds like a lit/shield brute before the shield charge damage was adjusted. or burn had the fear component added.
What animations are choppy? How are they stiff? The fact that you can move while performing many of them doesn't really feel stiff to me.
I know it's all in the eye of the beholder, but I was completely wowed by the animations in this game, and this was coming off of over a year in City. Everything looked more fluid and dynamic to me. Single/Dual Blade? I think those look great. The fact that the animations go faster than your typical normal guy wielding a sword, and that your character jumps about all willy-nilly, completely not like someone would do in real life? I think that's a big plus.
Definitely does not seem "rushed out the door" to me.
Most of them that I've noticed so far, as I've said, they don't flow into each other very well, like where one animation ends and the character suddenly JERKS itself into the next animation it performs. It's very awkward to watch. They're stiff in terms like the characters are made out of wood and only have so many points of articulation that they can move in (the walk animation is absolutely atrocious in this regard).
Then you frankly have very low standards.
More likely that you put an ugly, outdated game on too high a pedestal.
>Implying the Saturday Morning Cartoon artstyle with gorilla arms isn't already uglier.
agreed. I love the little things in CO more than COX, like fingers.
I just miss the Larger Maps, that actually felt like a City. Multiple leveling paths were nice too. Though I quit many years before it closed (only due to my SG falling apart and because my Comp could no longer run the game.) I did try to go back about 6 months before it closed its doors, but I just couldn't stay. After Freeform it just felt too limited. Though the travel powers were so much better in COX.
What I will miss:
Zones
Travel Powers
Story (since it actually had one, CO really doesn't)
SG bases
and
PVP was fun and gave you mission within the maps
What I won't miss:
Waiting for powers to recharge
Non-Freeform linear builds
blocky character models
Half speed travel powers at LV15
No capes/auras/real travel powers until halfway through character progression
Artistic preference does not equal level of standards.
For instance, we could talk about model polycount in City, which is something you can actually quantify, and we can also talk about the art style, which is something that's subjective to everyone. That's why I mentioned the whole "Eye of the Beholder" thing.
I personally think City was bland. Stylization appeals to me a lot. I get tired of looking at video games that are trying to be too realistic. This is a personal preference. The CG Clone Wars cartoons, I loved their look. I like Champs' looks, but I would prefer even more stylization, be it with texturing (Borderlands) or rendering (Ultimate Spider-Man). City looked washed-out to me, dull, and uninteresting due to having little style.
If you want to talk about low standards, we can look around and see if there's anyone who thought that City's character models looked good, with their razor-sharp chins and tiny little mitten hands and just an overall blocky appearance.
There's a big divide between these two things. A good example is WoW. I love the art style since ******** 2, and I loved the character designs in WoW. But, I thought they looked good despite their low polygon count, because of the style. I understood that low polycount means more people can run the game, and I think that's a good choice, but I was never wowed by the models themselves, on a technical level. Hell, Humans couldn't even run without their legs deforming into thin little twigs.
That's probably because powers have their own unique animations. The only way to make everything look fluid and seamless is to have the system provide animations for every transition possible when switching from one power to another in order for them to not look "jerky" or "snappy". As for the power, attack and combat-ready animation themselves individually, I don't see anything jerky about them.
As for the walk animation, I remember CoX's female walk animation being laughable. The exaggerated hip-swaying catwalk made it so that every female toon of mine treated everywhere they walked on like a supermodel runway. I know that for the longest time, players had been begging for a walk animation forever for RP purposes, since running everywhere in Pocket D always felt silly, and that was what they gave our female toons when we got it finally? I sure enjoyed that every one of my female toons were stereotyped into a sultry-vixen type no matter how they looked.
The Saturday Morning Cartoon artstyle, I can see the connection. Gorilla arms though? Are we refering to the default model slider settings? I can't argue that the default arm and finger slider settings are way overdone but those can be easily adjusted.
Yeah, get over yourself. Is this how you typically respond to people who have a preference for CO's artstyle or over CoX's? I get how CoX is so revered having been the flagship superhero MMO and due to the fact that it has been shut down. These factors seem to make it so that any criticism against it is met with the standard HOW DARE YOU SPEAK AGAINST IT responses.
When I first started playing CoX in 2008, I could already tell that the graphics were already dated. Everything did look washed-out and bland like Smack has described, if we're going to go the route of graphics comparison. Even then I set my standards low enough to enjoy the visuals, because the gameplay more than made up for the dated graphics. Yeah, I set my standards low so that I could enjoy and praise CoX on its own merits. Funny that. On the sole grounds of superior graphics between both games though? CO picks up the win sorry to say. I prefer lively Saturday Morning Cartoon artstyles over dull, washed-out color tones.
They had less cartoonish graphic direction, which may be more immersive for some of us. But that's all.
Character models were absolutely basic, with few details and even those were made mostly by texturing. Not a single character or costume part was even remotely as detailed as CO parts.
They weren't much more accurate in terms of body proportions. Just warped in a different way than CO. Female models had too small hands.
CoX maps were more immersive, but it was because of their size and layout. You were in actual city-sized districts so immersion was higher. But they were not even remotely as detailed as CO maps.
For crying out loud, there are maps and models as detailed as were CoX models, in both older Total War full 3d titles (Rome and Medieval 2). In games made with thousands of models displayed simulatneously and with no intent for players to look at them in close ups.
It was dated game, it was showing. It can't be denied.
Just a small reminder to break few rose-tinted glasses.
Even at lowest lightning details CO model is far more detailed than CoX one.
(Yes, it's a blackredder. Deal with it. Lol.)
I guess I like to take my characters a little more seriously than this game does. Because I find myself wishing that Champions Online had a bit more texturing, at least to keep me from comparing my characters' faces to the Incredibles (regardless that it was a good movie). Star Trek Online has managed to delight me with all of its facial textures and so forth.
And if realism looks "washed out" to you, I have to wonder how you get through life.
Yeah, I never will defend the mitten hands. It was the limits of the engine when it came out. I can't recall these "razor sharp chins" you speak of though.
I wouldn't know, because I've never played that game.
And yet I notice that Star Trek Online manages to look more fluid in my eyes with its animations as did City of Heroes'. No, there's something left out in Champions and it's likely the transitions you've mentioned.
And no, I said the animations by themselves I said look stiff, like they're all wooden puppets. Like the walk example:
And yet for all its sexism, it still managed to have more actual movement than the robotic walk Champions has.
True enough, and I always do adjust them. However, all of the NPCs still do have the long gorilla arms, so I still have to look at them.
Do you ever get tired of creating strawmen, Jenny? Look at the timeline of the posts you're quoting, because your distortion of facts here is grossly inaccurate. In the post of Biff's that quote is in response to, there wasn't a single criticism of City of Heroes for this imaginary "HOW DARE YOU" of yours. I simply considered his standards low because I think CO's animations are poor and unpolished.
In fact, the only people here guilty of "HOW DARE YOU" posts are you and Biff with this tirade of yours and his "ugly" comment respectively.
Oh yes, CO clearly has the superior graphics engine (higher res and poly counts), but that's not what the debate is about.
It's about art style and animations (well, originally just the animations). I just don't like the direction taken with the art and the animations look unfinished to me.
you do know you are a naysayer? right?
this reminds me of my grandma when they quit making the cough drops she liked.
Thanks for stating it as opinion and not a lack of standards.
It's my opinion that your standards are low.
why play something you don't enjoy, and worse why complain about something you do in your leisure time. just find something that makes you happy.
or do you think you can change him?
Mark this day on your calendar! For the first time ever, a WRONG OPINION!
Your mistake is assuming that criticism is lack of enjoyment. I do enjoy this game, as the gameplay is fun, the costume creator is extremely versatile, and the Nemesis system ingenious. But that doesn't mean I should turn my head away from the problems I perceive. Without criticism, there is no impetus to improve.
*checks wristwatch*
Did it work?
keep in mind your ideas of improvement may not mirror others. many of us chose this game when both games were around. the things you like may be different than others'.
Just so long as you also keep that in mind.
I have to wonder if you have high quality lighting turned off. The normal mapping does what texturing tried to do, and does it better.
Easy, I have no difficulty separating reality from fantasy. Good try though.
I'd log in and try to take a screenshot but...
I dunno, maybe I'm misremembering, but My memory points to a large type character with some pretty sharp chinnage.
OK, there's pandas.
Sounds to me like you're looking to find flaws in the game that survived yours, to be honest. I may be wrong, but I see more negative posts from you about Champs than positive ones.
It's well-known that you have a big love of City. When I said the Champs animations were great, and didn't look rushed, you said I have low standards. That's not an opinion, that's just general crappery. In that post you're basically saying that there is something wrong with me for liking Champs animations.
Saying that there's something wrong with me for having a differing opinion than you fits squarely in the "HOW DARE YOU" department. You could have responded with just an opinion instead of acting like City animations were factually better than Champs', but you didn't. You chose the low road. And then I did too because I like rollercoasters.