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devtracker
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Ever since City of Heroes was abruptly and unjustly sunsetted, I've toyed with the idea of giving Champions Online another spin. It can never be everything City of Heroes was to me, but it has a lot of the same ideas behind it, and it's closer in spirit and gameplay to my beloved CoH than the admittedly few other superhero options on the table.
But Champions Online has been so spottily supported by its developers over the last few years that I have a nagging suspicion I'd just be wasting my time, that the game is locked into a cycle of decay that will only frustrate me in the long run if I invest too much time, money, or emotion into it. And that's enough to keep me away.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/04/29/the-daily-grind-is-there-an-mmo-youre-too-wary-to-play/
Um...at least the game is being talked about?
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"Champions Online... It can never be everything City of Heroes was to me"
That's ultimately the issue. It often seems the CO is almost blamed for surviving when CoH didn't.
I have absolutely nothing against CoH or it's players, and I understand the sentiment but many former CoH players start off any sentence about the two this way.
CO will never live up to what they had in their favorite game and negativity in almost every mention of CO is the result, even if it's unintentional.
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Is there something incorrect in this passage?
You could be an MMO player who never so much as clicked a Download Now link for CoH and come to that conclusion. Hell, that's probably the nagging little voice in the ear of the "OMG STO IS GOING INTO MAINTENANCE MODE" Chicken Littles in their community every time the next Episode announcement takes 15 minutes longer than anticipated
Champions Online's level of developer support is part of Cryptic's reputation now, for good or ill. If it has a particular effect on CoH exiles, it's "once burned, twice shy".
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The first paragraph in the article certianly has the vibe of someone who played CoX at least enough to really enjoy it. So I'd have to say there was certainly some bias. That being said however I can't blame him (or any other MMO player) for being hesitant with joining Champs, let alone having even heard of it. There has been some good leaps towards more development, and I'll still remain optimistic that it'll be around for a good length of time as well. However I can't deny that the overall impression of Champs isn't one of confidence... until you actually get in the game and play it to find what you like. It's not for everyone, but I still suggest to people to try it out no matter.
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That said, I can't blame anyone who is leery of development on this title. I'm more optimistic about CO than I've been in a long time, but even that varies from day to day.
I agree! I think the one thing that made me leave CoV was I just didn't feel like a super powered person. I felt I needed groups for everything.
CO has been one of those things when it's bad it's really bad but when it's good it's super fun! The last 365days super fun and full of attention...the previous year, not so much. I was month to month back in 2011 and when I got my new computer I went LT because of the direction I felt they were going, 2012 made me regret that. But since then I have never regretted it.
One of the turn offs for me about my tenure on CoH was that the best, least grindy content pretty much required a team, and (being an old fogey) I really can't match the pace pf a team of speed junkies, particularly navigating narrow corridors and caves. That said, I still harbor a great deal of fondness for CoH, and wish it had not been cancelled. I understand the anger of ex-CoX players - I share it, though mostly for my friends on the dev team who lost their jobs and saw their work die a needless, premature death --, but at the same time, I do get frustrated that a significant number of them seem to take it out on CO, as if this title's survival was some sort of cosmic insult.
People place that game on too high a pedestal and hold other games to unrealistic standards.
Not in that one, but when you lead off with "CoH was so great, Champs will never come close to it," you're already kind of admitting that you're predisposed to not playing it.
Honestly this just sounds like there's no point to the article, just some sort of rally point to all those people celebrating the 10th anniversary or whatever it was.
CO fails to come close to the expectations of Cyptic's other games, let alone those of other companies.
The description of CO's handling is utterly on point, and taking snipes at supposed motives has the stench of desperate rationalization.
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?
Biff, I respectfully disagree, the reason city of heroes is on that high pedestal, because the dev team cared about the game they were working on.
What did Champions get, they got dropped the moment sto and now needed help now Co is in desperate need of help where is Pwe/Cryptic no where, they are willfully letting this game die, before this game even goes to a quarter of its true potienal.
Except none of that is really the point. What is stopping him from playing CO is NOT that it isnt "as good" as COX. What is stopping him is the sad state of development the game is in right now.
Hang on, let's be honest- most of the people I know that have tried CO will put it down in a week. Most of those people didn't play City of Heroes. CO has enough problems on its own, even if it was the only Superhero MMORPG ever made.
You guys get buttmad about all the City of Heroes players that miss their game and try to re-create that experience here. But CoX had better writing, more balance, and more love than CO will ever get. If you think otherwise, you're blind and stupid. It's not Cryptic's fault. I blame PWE and Atari.
Yes, it gets annoying when these people miss City of Heroes. But by all means, let's be sure those City of Heroes players feel completely unwelcome and loathed. It's not like we need more people coming to CO. So please, continue showing the rest of the gaming world how toxic we are.
Of course, don't get me wrong, I hate some of the CoXers, too. Namely the ones that told me I was a disgrace to my uniform for not boycotting NCSoft.
However I will say that some of those CoXers have been leaps and bounds better than some of the toxic manchildren we had running rampant in this community before they got here.
I agree, Co fails to meet any kind of real expectation of fans that expect a game to be at in its live time. It should far missions, some kind of story line instead of a mishmash, some kind of direction from its host company and the devs.
Her point was, 'Ever since my game died, I toyed with the idea of trying this other game, but I'm not going to because the word of mouth is not changing my predisposition against doing so. Are there any games you're not going to try, sight unseen, and why?'
And yeah, for me: many. One of my answers to her question would be NWO, because, mechanically, it's CO without the customization, and 'cuz fantasy (I am heavily burned out of fantasy).
Are my reasons justifiable? Eh, probably not, but honestly, this (predisposition -> apathy) does happen in the gaming world (a lot).
Edit: Heck, "'cuz fantasy" is why I probably won't give ESO two looks.
Looks like you missed this part:
Highlight mine of course. She has obviously played this game before, and is thinking of coming back. But she has also obviously kept up with the game's development, and can see its stagnating. Thats not some uniformed person who has never played the game because of word of mouth, its someone who has played it before and kept up with whats going on, or in this case, what isnt.
Nice try with the strawman though :rolleyes:
Atari was the ones who kicked Cryptic in the butt to further development in the game.
Cryptic made the comics, forced by Atari, as an ultimatum. But Cryptic proved yet again how little interest they had in Champions by how poor their second comic was developed. Atari considered that was the bar that Cryptic held for their games and decided to sell them off since they didn't want any part of that.
And we can't blame PWE for what is happening to Champions either.
PWE is letting Cryptic do what they want with the direction of STO and CO since they only cared about NWO. Those in charge in Cryptic only fought for the investment into STO from PWE. PWE isn't tying Cryptic down to Champions because Cryptic isn't even interested in Champions anymore, so why should PWE be?
Cryptic is the reason why Champions has stagnated since On Alert. Don't blame PWE or Atari when Cryptic never tried to fight for CO's further investment.
I tried CoX when it went F2P. I didn't care for it a whole lot. Don't get me wrong, there were some very nice things about CoX. Good character creation, seemed like there was a good variety of powers and upgrades to choose from, story seemed good at a glance at least. Where it fell flat for me was the combat. It seemed like I was always waiting for power cooldowns so I could do stuff. Maybe it would have gotten more dynamic at higher levels? I dunno, I didn't play that much nor did I have much of a chance too since it was closed later that year.
Despite not getting into the game, I will say it sucks that it was closed down. I'll raise my glass in honor for the game along with the CoX vets.
As for CO. I play here still because I have fun. Yes, we could certainly do with more "dev love". However, I disagree that things are as dark and gruesome as some people here like to think they are. There may not be tons of stuff going on, but I can certainly say that we do have devs that are doing work and definitely are listening to feedback from us players. I would even say that the current dev team listens to us players more now than in previous years.
In short, could things be better? Yes. But we are far from being at the worst.
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Yep all that^
I pretty much agree completely, and I had a very similar experience with CoX as well... though I played a little bit of it in the first few months then returned after it went f2p. I did enjoy it, despite feeling like the combat was too slow... but back then I couldn't afford the sub.
I get that, and agree, but he's also predisposed to not like CO because it isn't CoH.
I don't think for a second that CO is awash is development, nor that having a lack of interest in playing for that reason is an invalid point.
My point is that the preamble to the whole piece establishes that the writer is still bitter about CoH and that the underdeveloped CO still survives is salt in his wounds.
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ftfy
That's a very important distinction to make.
Um, no. You see, just because you may not like one game AS MUCH as you like another does not necessarily mean that you dont like it AT ALL. I play several games, and some I enjoy more than others. But I still LIKE them all. So no, not liking Champs AS MUCH as COX does not mean you cant still LIKE Champs or that you are "predisposed not to like" it because you dont enjoy it AS MUCH as another game. The real world is not based on absolutes, and there are many different levels of how much you can "like" something.
I like a wide variety of games as well, and harbor no grudges about any of them.
He's more than welcome not to like CO based on it's merits, or lack thereof. My whole point is simply that his love for CoH has colored his opinion of CO right from the get go.
Had his review not started out with the disclaimer that CO could never live up to his long lost beloved, I wouldn't have given a second thought to his distaste for CO. Not everyone's cup o' tea after all.
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The fact that you keep putting words in the writers mouth to try to make your point proves you have no valid point in the first place. The writer NEVER said they didnt like CO. Not one single time. What she did say is that she enjoyed COX more than she enjoys CO. And regardless of that fact, she is still interested in playing CO, but is hesitant to do so because of the sad development the game is getting. So the reason she is not playing CO right now is NOT because she doesnt like the game, and its NOT because she enjoyed COX more. It is because she is discouraged by the lack of development this game is getting at this point. And that feeling has absolutely nothing to do with COX or any other game.
You'd be a serious contender for captain of the Atari cheer squad with a post like this. The most publicized player exodus from CO happened on Atari's watch when Vibora Pay went down. So don't try to paint this picture of Atari not being responsible for some of the development problems CO suffered from back then.
With that said, how about we stop focusing on Atari and focus on the here and now on current development with the facts we have available to us. One of those facts being that Cryptic has and will continue to put focus on their other titles because if either of those become flops they could kiss a great deal of money goodbye. CO is a low risk project; they won't lose any licences or take as serious a hit in player or income losses if it were to go belly-up when compared to their licensed titles.
I don't just mean development. Combat, graphics, storytelling, costuming, even their community, every single aspect is held higher by some people. Honestly, I laugh any time someone says that CoH graphics were better. Even with their Ultra Mode. Sorry, but no. Never. CoH did have some areas where it was better than Champs, but personally, those things didn't make the game better. You can put millions of hours worth of content into a game I think is boring, and it won't make it a good game to me. You can have a thousand fiercely-devoted developers working on a boring game, and at the end it's still a boring game.
So yes, unrealistically high expectations, like "Champions graphics are so ugly, they're nothing compared to CoH."
The developers cared?
Let's put CoH in the same boat as Champs. Let's say that instead of killing the game outright, they moved a majority of the developers to other projects, and let the game just sustain itself. And let's keep in mind that it was forced to go free-to-play also. A sure sign that what you're doing is not working.
So would the developers "caring" so much about the game still make it the greatest game there ever was? Even if their development slows to a crawl because they're understaffed?
Having developers that care (and we have no indication that ours don't care) doesn't make a game great.
yeah, that was twice though,issue 7 and 8, i think issue 13 was close, but compared to how long it has been between any thing approaching an issue here, its still not a positive comparison.
not sure your point here. people say the developers cared because they regularly interacted with us. we got ustream live chats with the developers, david N(the lead character guy) popped in often on a saturday night to chat with us on the forums and discuss costumes and development, and we had our big reveals at pax and herocon after a complaint about gender locked outfits happened, one of their character artists went through and converted 2 of the outfits in response to player concerns, and dave posted repeatedly in the threads on the topic. the issue is that the developers really pushed for contact and transparency and connected with the players last post from a developer was radio science how long ago? THAT, coupled with the natural charisma of people like melissa bianco and matt miller was hy they get put on the pedestal, lots of interaction. people still complained, that never changes, and nothing is going to make everyone happy, but if you want to know, thats why, because i got to actually interact directly with the devs...i dont even know who the devs here are anymore. Do we still have cryptic north?
If a game is fun, then it's worth playing. Doesn't matter when it's going to stop being developed, or shut down, as long as you enjoyed playing it. I don't see why there has to be a promise of a bunch more content or whatever before you sit down and enjoy it, unless you've already done everything there is to do. But if you haven't, what's stopping you from putting down fifteen bucks and giving the game a try again? Even if the game got shut down next month, you still enjoyed your time, right?
Maybe I, as a fan of Champions, is the one reading this in a biased way. But can you blame me? What if someone wrote this article:
Wouldn't that rub you the wrong way? Full of arrogance and no point to it at all. Even the comments are full of all the reasons why CoH is better than Champions, and people saying they won't play certain games just because they're NCSoft.
Then put the developers, for all their merits, on the pedestal, not the game. Like I said, people caring does not make a game great.
I try to be fair when I say this:
Take CO's character creation system, all the costume parts that aren't specific to Champions universe lore-wise (and that's very few, mostly stuff like Foxbat Belt).
Take the speed of gameplay from CO.
Now, everything else, take it from CoX.
Stir. Perfect game.
Now devs aren't perhaps the only thing i put coh and a pedestal for, there were a large number of reasons, but yeah, the feeling of being cared for? it was nice, and that's no just in relation to co, i played phantasy star universe, imagine being ignored as bad as we are, AND watching japan get a much better updated version of the game, fun fun.
"Champions Online....It can never be everything City of Heroes was to me"
"My Beloved CoH"
This sets a tone. I didn't not put the words in her mouth.
I am sorry for her loss.
I agree wholeheartedly with her disappointment is CO's development.
I am sorry she cannot commit to it for that reason, but don't blame her for that.
How can anything ever compare to one's beloved? Her disappointment, while currently, rightfully, focused on development, would not be abated...in my opinion...were development not an issue.
It simply isn't her beloved former game. And that is strictly my opinion. Feel free to ignore it, as you've made clear that you will.
You're a lunatic with a mad man's dream of a milk proof robot!
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It would take several more steps for me to call it perfect, personally.
Yes, for sure, I could bear to have a lot less pop culture references shoved in my face, but so much of that game was team-based, I'd get bored trying to find something to do. I'm sure most people don't feel that way, it's just my aversion to being around people, but yeah.
Also, I'm a big fan of how Champions makes you out to be a superhero right off the bat. Several things I'd keep past the character creation, costumes, and combat.
No I get you, an interacting developer team is great, and I wish the Champs development team did reach out to everyone a lot more often, but you probably won't ever convince me that people don't put the game on such a high pedestal that nothing can touch it. I've seen it with my own eyes.
Do tell, I'd probably agree with you.
Although I do like the idea of 'climbing the ladder'.
Off topic, I do wish there was an Exalted MMORPG. Dear God, that would be insane.
As for "there has to always be tons of new content or it's not worth playing" - yeah, I guess that's why nobody even bothers with chess or Monopoly or Texas Hold'em any more, because it's just been ages since anything new was developed for those games. And of course if there's nothing new, then it can't be enjoyable.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Tell that to STO. All you have to do is look at their dev tracker to see there is plenty of interaction. By your logic this should mean there is little actual development going on. However, they just released a big update, and their second expansion is coming later this year.
Well, let's be perfectly honest here...
I see costumes developed, and I'm happy with that part. We've seen some mini-missions/alerts, which are pretty cool. We've also seen a few minor tweaks here and there, which I'm okay with.
However, what we have seen is a far cry from 'development'. It's more like 'Maintenance' with a few goodies here and there. If your logic is 'they aren't on the forums, they are developing', then they either aren't good at developing things, or there are about five people focused on CO.
And if they are developing real content? They're not very good at helping us keep the faith, because I'm seeing nothing at all that looks like they have any plans for this game other than what it is now.
My thoughts on their lack of presence on the forums? Half of what is wrong with CO is because they tried to listen to and please everyone and people nerd-raged when they didn't get absurd demands met. If I were them, during some of those earlier months, I'd be avoiding this forum like it was made of Hitler's genitals.
Now that might be a bit extreme. It's a bit unfair to compare an mmo to tabletop games. Then again, all of those games also bore the hell out of me, I only play cards once in a blue as a social thing. I think a better comparison would be the super nintendo. Sure, it was awesome when it came out, but new and better eventually followed, and they stopped producing for it. Sure, I still go back and play Shadowrun once in a while (that game ROCKS) but I don't play it daily like I used to. And considering the fact that this is a game that thrives on people spending money, that's a bit of a problem.
That said? We're getting costumes, we get events (we just had one, after all), we get occasional power mini-sets, they fiddle with the mechanics and add stuff like the vehicle conversion... The problem is less the content and more the fact that the content isn't what they desire. Hell, the tailor alone keeps me here, I'm getting my LTS in 2 weeks. I'm golden with the costumes and auras (even if I'm still miffed about the fact that auras are per character and have to be shuffled about, which requires more bank space and aura slots and... Well you get the idea), and even after all these years I still have fun with the content. The new alerts do it well enough for me, and the events are a nice switch up to change the pace. Would I like more missions and comic series? Hell yeah, WHY HAVEN'T WE HAD WHITEOUT'S ENDING WRAPPED UP YET? *headdesk*
I'd hardly say it's world breaking for me if it doesn't happen, though. Heck, for the most part I'm so wrapped up in BSing on random channels that I never even have time to do quests.
RIP Caine
That's the thing they are understaffed by cryptic's/pwe's doing nothing else.
as far as comparing city of co there is no comparison because thedevs on city of did/does care of their product and it showed due to communication and constant updates of, where as cryptic dropped this game and ran to fix sto and now this is a fact.
So to say cryptic does not care about this game is truthful and reasonable because if cryptic did care this game would not be in this sorry state. We would have a full standard level 50, more zones, more powers, and more of everything, and until this game gets recused like their other 2 games I will not believe Pwe or cryptic cares about this game.
Can we use The Secret World's graphics instead?
I mean, if we're making the perfect game and all...
Or to even tone it down a bit, if she wrote an article two years ago asking, 'Why isn't anybody (new) playing CoH?' and the answer she got was, 'Eh, it's old and dying.' would she have just nodded and said, 'Yeah, you're right. That's a perfectly justifiable reason not to play a game.'?
Eh, it's hard to embellish fantastic looks and all with that style.
But I could manage as long as we didn't have those god-awful animations from TSW.