Titan Network
Graveyard => Save Paragon Retirees => Save Paragon City! => Topic started by: Blue Pulsar on December 27, 2012, 07:52:58 PM
-
My boss gave me the day off due to slow business. Normally I'd be playing CoV for hours today but...
I need something. I've tried a few other games and none of them are even close to CoV. I don't really need the lore and genre is becoming less and less relevant for me. Until we get our game back (in whatever form we get it back) I need something to pass the time. An MMO with even marginally similar playstyles as CoX. I just need something similar. I know nothing will ever be like CoV was for me, but at this point I'm really chomping at the bit for anything.
Any recommendations?
-
How embarrassing. I just noticed my glaring spelling mistake in the title... >_<
I'm just that stressed.
-
steam certainly has a lot of options due to their winter sales going on
mmo wise, i am unsure since i have not played many other mmos due to not liking them
-
Is that the proper title? Got a link for it?
-
As of now, my friends and I are enjoying Planetside 2 thoroughly. MMO wise, GW2 is pestering me to 'try playing me again.' Even though in beta I grew bored of it after making a new character. Same stuff, different class, basically. Not to mention I'm still boycotting NCSucks.
MMO wise, I'm waiting for The Elder Scrolls Online. I know how you feel, wanting something to dig time into. I'm in the same spot. :/
-
I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online and found it pretty easy to get into. The default controls and such are similar enough to city that I find it pretty easy to get used to. Plus it's free and I get to wander around Middle Earth. :)
-
Am still looking, also. So far, nothing comes close. And, btw the "new and improved" WOW is still just as annoying, but with better graphics.
-
I am fond of The Secret World. The whole "secret" thing, especially the societies, is actually quite redundant, but if you learn to look past it, the rest of the story is well written and quite interesting. One thing I do not know how to feel about is the fact that sometimes the game feels like a single player game with chat interface slapped on it. But it's fun both while solo and on team.
Oh, and it is also about having super powers.
-
I am fond of The Secret World. The whole "secret" thing, especially the societies, is actually quite redundant, but if you learn to look past it, the rest of the story is well written and quite interesting. One thing I do not know how to feel about is the fact that sometimes the game feels like a single player game with chat interface slapped on it. But it's fun both while solo and on team.
Oh, and it is also about having super powers.
Okay, I saw this trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=4A4i12-yhAA&feature=endscreen) and that pretty much made my mind up. (Blizzard keeps putting up WoW trailers in front of other MMO vids on YouTube, so if you see that, it's not what I'm talking about.)
Thanks Froggy.
-
I was really interested in Secret World - the whole premise was really intriguing.
Then I saw the Mark of the Beast on the trailers and that was the end of that.
-
I've been giving SWTOR another try the last few days. I like it more, the more I play it. There's also Champions of course.
-
I'm at a loss when it comes to other MMOs to play.
Around this time of year, playing old games makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Or maybe pick up a new game to give a try? Dragon's Dogma 2 is pretty fun and I think its going for a cheap price right now.
-
Anyone else see the new WoW trailer and think "They totally just copied Kung-Fu Panda!" Thats what I initially thought the trailer was for, in fact.
-
I'm finally fumbling around in The Secret World, good story lines...and for a more in depth look at alternatives, there are several threads on the forums under Other Games, discussing this very question. :) That said, I died so much yesterday (a day of immersion) and am so fricking tired of zombies that tonight I've spent the night trying to find old screenshots (before they labeled them as screenshots and put them in a file)...sadly my old desktop lost an entire drive in 2010 so I think my early shots (2006 on) and all the shots of the old base are gone.
Robin
-
I need something. I've tried a few other games and none of them are even close to CoV. I don't really need the lore and genre is becoming less and less relevant for me. Until we get our game back (in whatever form we get it back) I need something to pass the time. An MMO with even marginally similar playstyles as CoX. I just need something similar. I know nothing will ever be like CoV was for me, but at this point I'm really chomping at the bit for anything.
Any recommendations?
Can you tell us what you did try? That'd help narrow it down some.
Not knowing that - I'll cover some bases that I know.
I know you said genre doesn't matter, but let's start close to home, as it were.
Champions Online and DC Universe Online.
If you can look past the fact that neither game is COH/COV and accept them for what they are, you might find something to love in either of them.
As far as "look and feel" and gameplay style, neither one is going to be quite the same. They were both intended to appeal more to the "twitch" gamer than COH ever was. DCUO especially so.
If you're interested in playing villains, then DCUO is the one you'll have to try. CO has no villain option (except at a remove - you get to create a nemesis for each character at lvl 25.)
There's a lot more info on Champions in the "Other games" section of the forums here. But I want to make note of the fact that of the two - CO plays more like COH. And can be MADE to play even MORE like COH if you know how to tweak the UI and settings. (I can point you to those threads if you like. Or I can explain in more detail if you want to PM me.)
DCUO is like NO other MMO I've ever played. Put aside ALL preconceptions about how an MMO should play. Treat it like a 3rd person SHOOTER game like Mass Effect. Again - there's threads pointing out the differences and how they work in the other games forums. Same as above.
If you feel like another genre to get AWAY from superheroes - and some people do, because they're hurting when they think about it - there's a LOT of options for fantasy games naturally. Not so much Sci-Fi. But there are some notables.
SWTOR has been mentioned. I have no clue about that one, but if you liked Bioware's Knights of the Old Republic games, it's based in that section of Star Wars historical timeline (give or take a few decades). It's on my list to try out and it's F2P.
Star Trek Online is also F2P and - aside from Perfect World's annoying tendency to keep banging you over the head with lock-boxes trying to entice you to gamble for stuff (which is also afflicting Champions and even SOE is doing some of that with DCUO) - it's actually a VERY nice game and there's hardly any barrier to playing as a Free player. Champions is pretty locked down in that regard with a LOT of things behind pay walls. But almost none of the basic stuff in STO is, particularly in regard to PVE. The universe started out big and has gotten HUGE. And they have "The Foundry" which is the equivelant to COH's AE. And a lot of people have written some AWESOME stuff there. And the Devs highlight a new "devs choice" from the foundry every so often. (Seems like once a week.)
I'm about to try The Secret World myself actually, but I know nothing yet, but it LOOKS very nice.
There's always World of Warcraft, of course. I used to play that a lot. But I haven't touched it in over a year. But Mists of Panderia is actually winning a lot of new people and bringing older players back in some cases, or so I hear.
Dungeons and Dragons Online is an older game. F2P of course. VERY pretty. They've upgraded the graphics several times since it was released. It's not real friendly as a solo game though.
RIFT has an interesting premise for a Fantasy World. I played it for a while. Enjoyed it. But it didn't really grab me to make me stay. But it's very VERY pretty.
Anyway. That's some thoughts off the the top of my head.
-
theres only been i think 3 mmos ive tried other than coh, ever lol
asda story/asda story 2: totally awful game, massive grindfest, and from what i read the second game was 99% identical to the first game, but with a completely different skill system, which alienated the playerbase and now the servers are basically deserted (havent played this in like 2+ years, but the grind was terrible, from what i read, at lvl 59 1.5 million xp was 0.01% of the progress to next level)
runes of magic: decent f2p option, although too much grinding and slow paced for me, its most interesting point IMO is a dual-class system where you character has a primary and a secondary class, the only annoying thing about it was you had to level up each class seperately to get the skills (only primary class gained xp, so you would have to level to 50, twice, on the same character with each class)
fallen earth: good f2p post apocalyptic setting, although kinda grindy later in the game and the game in general is just very slow paced, decent game, but gets VERY boring very quickly unless you play it for short periods of time
-
I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online and found it pretty easy to get into. The default controls and such are similar enough to city that I find it pretty easy to get used to. Plus it's free and I get to wander around Middle Earth. :)
I'd also recommend Lord of the Rings Online, especially if you're even slightly interested in the books.
-
SWTOR has been mentioned. I have no clue about that one, but if you liked Bioware's Knights of the Old Republic games, it's based in that section of Star Wars historical timeline (give or take a few decades). It's on my list to try out and it's F2P.
About 30 years later IIRC, and it takes you back to some familiar locations if you're a KOTOR fan - Taris for one, in addition to some cameos/references to characters from that age (game).
The Secret World also seems pretty solid, especially now that they've got B2P - and out of both "F2P" games, seems to have the best system (SWTOR's restrictions are pretty severe if you don't sub, then again, maybe that only applies if you're a returning player and used to certain things... kinda like playing CoV with all vet rewards stripped away and no VIP status).
-
DCUO is alright. It will not be CoX obviously, but what you get out of the box for a F2P game is pretty good. The character creation is decent and the combat is very intuitive.
CO on the other hand....ick. Terribly stereotypical MMO with a lot of microtransactions. The character creation was completely gimped by the "pay to win" mantra.
SWTOR is good, and has the amazing storytelling power of Bioware. But it does suffer from "WoW-cloneism."
-
Honestly, CO, I'm REALLY not crazy about the art style. The gameplay's a bit repetitive. But not really any more than CoH was. Yeah. It does play different than CoH.
And yes, I'm most definitely biased by the fact that I have a lifetime sub and don't have to spend a dime.
Even so, the ATs aren't really that horribly limiting. But yes, Freeform is ridiculously more powerful.
But the costume creator has lots and LOTS of options.
The DCUO CC is just horrible though. Part of the problem is its limited because of the console port.
The female models look okay. But the male models come in 3 varieties. Ugly. Butt ugly. And OMGWTF?
And while the three color costume option is nice, the actual costume options themselves are terribly limited and not very good.
But the main downfall of the game is the console-centric control system. I guess it'd be "okay" if I was willing to play with a controller. But I'm not. I haven't touched a controller since my original Sega system. I simply don't have the manual dexterity for them. But on a keyboard and mouse, the game is horrific.
-
Anyone else see the new WoW trailer and think "They totally just copied Kung-Fu Panda!" That's what I initially thought the trailer was for, in fact.
Having played (I don't actually have the expansion, so I have access to pandas but not monks), I'm left with that impression in-game, as well.
After watching the trailer, I had this scenario play out in my head where one of the leads comes into the office after seeing the first KFP movie. He's all excited about it and has this whole background worked out in his head. It all seemed very George Broussard. And, of course, it was animated, a la South Park. :)
Given the potential development cycle for an expansion, the timing works out.
-
I'm like so many of us- restless, game-homeless and looking for a place to roost where I could find a community that was somewhat like what we had. My problem is also compounded by the fact that I'm using an older computer and unfortunately there's no way I could run something like Secret World. I might give CO a whirl but it would always be colored with my perceptions from CoH. "Well, this is good, but we used to do it this way in CoH." No one in any community likes a gamer that whines like that. It would be similar to having someone from another part of the states move to your home state and then complain incessantly about how they did things differently in their former area, to the extent that down South you occasionally see the bumper sticker "I don't CARE how you did it up North."
Is there a cozy little spot where we can find a home? Is there somewhere with the community and ease of play that would work well on an older computer? I'll never support another NCSoft product again, that's for sure.
-
if you want something with low graphics requirements, theres always everquest lol (which is f2p on steam and has very low min spec requirements)
ive actually contemplated giving that a shot
-
My boss gave me the day off due to slow business. Normally I'd be playing CoV for hours today but...
I need something. I've tried a few other games and none of them are even close to CoV. I don't really need the lore and genre is becoming less and less relevant for me. Until we get our game back (in whatever form we get it back) I need something to pass the time. An MMO with even marginally similar playstyles as CoX. I just need something similar. I know nothing will ever be like CoV was for me, but at this point I'm really chomping at the bit for anything.
Any recommendations?
As far as super hero MMOs, you have CO and DCUO. CO have somewhat similar mechanics but still it's own animacl compared to COX, DCUO is even more less like COX in playstyle but similar concept.
Typos happen to the best of us, even the most fluent, intelligent, stickler for proper English makes mistakes from time to time believe it or not contrary to their air of total perfection never made mistake in their entire existance that some display. Nothing to be embarrassed about. It happens.
-
I've been experimenting with CO for the last few months. My evaluation?
Not bad.
It's not CoX. That's a given. There's so much about CoX that it simply did better, but then, we all know that. But I also remind myself that CO is only 3 years old. It hasn't had the kind of development time. It's unknown how much development it'll actually get, mind you, with the company having been absorbed by PWE. But it's not a foregone conclusion, either. It just "remains to be seen."
I can't afford a lifetime sub, at the moment. Heck, I can't even afford a subscription model. I plan to eventually get a life sub, if I can. Because the game offers what might be the closest I can get, under the circumstances. And I was a lifer with CoX, having been a paying subscriber without fail since Issue 2. So I kinda want to enjoy the same freedom with CO that I had with CoX. And after doing the math, a lifer sub just makes sense with that game, if one intends to play it in any depth. At $300, when you factor in that you get the equivalent of $60/year in free stuff, after the second year, they're paying you to play their game. When looked at in any meaningful way, that's just gotta be the most cost-effective solution.
I don't MMO to speak of. I dabbled with SWTOR, but was gone shortly after it came out. I don't do WoW, I can't stand the game and its ludicrous Nerf armor and rubber weapons. I love the graphical style, ironically enough, of the Lineage games, but they're really just SoK bot heaven these days, and no sane person would play there. Plus the game is more grind-heavy than WoW, which would have put me off the game, anyway.
I have to admit, I'm curious about Mechwarrior Online, which went live just this last October. I'm a fan of the Mechwarrior series, and was part of the original Multiplayer Battletech game back when it first came out on the GEnie system, using the original 16 colour Mechwarrior 2 game engine. I'd love it if that kind of mech combat game existed again. So I might try that.
Other than that? I play Mass Effect 3 multiplayer every now and then. Which surprises the hell out of me, since I usually can't stand multiplayer in most video games. ME3 handles it well, however, pitting the human players against the PC, and eliminating the tired old trope of being blown apart over and over by twitch-happy 12 years olds who memorized where all the best stuff was.
Planetside 2? See above. :) There's a lot of twitch-happy 12 year olds in that game, judging by some of the texted comments I see flying around the broadcast channel. I played it maybe two hours about half a month ago, and spent the entire time wandering around clueless because I didn't know what the heck was going on, or what I could do. That game really lacks for a decent tutorial.
So that's my two cents' worth, for what it matters. :)
-
To be fair, Pandaren long predate Kung-Fu Panda. They were first announced as a joke class for Warcraft III in April 2001, and then when the joke got positive reaction, they were put in as creeps in vanilla WC3 later that year and as playable Heroes in WC3: Reign of Chaos in 2002. There were even a few of them in vanilla WoW as NPCs, like Chen Stormstout and his Empty Keg quest.
Six years later, Kung-Fu Panda hit theaters.
So, no, Warcraft didn't copy Kung-Fu Panda, especially not its lore. Blizzard's Pandaren lore was in place long before KFP ever existed.
As for CO, I'm already starting to get bored with it, after less than a month. Unlike CoH, where I could break up the contact-mission-contact-mission-contact-mission monotony with things like tips or Mayhem missions or playing the market or something, the only variety here is running Alerts, and I'm not finding alerts all that interesting or even very profitable XP-wise (except for Smash alerts, which are too hectic for my playstyle and tend to fail about half the time anyway).
On top of that, I have crippling lag with my favorite character, my pseudo-Mastermind Dr. Bodog. I like having a lot of pets, but my old computer can't seem to keep up with six pets (and I was planning on getting more) at anywhere near full framerate even with the graphic settings turned down to rock-bottom. That just makes Smash Alerts even worse, because I'm only seeing my screen update once every second or two rather than 60 times a second.
And on top of that, the general (lack of) excitement for (nonexistent) upcoming content on the forums is contagious. Unlike the CoH, where there was always a lively discussion about the Next Big Thing that was going on (and there was always something - dozens of powersets, if nothing else), in CO there's no Next Big Thing at all. There's no hints of even a Next Little Thing. The main forum discussion involves continually asking why there's no Next Thing, and receiving no answers from any devs.
It's really depressing, because it is the closest to CoH right now. But even Jack doesn't care about it anymore.
-
CO on the other hand....ick. Terribly stereotypical MMO with a lot of microtransactions. The character creation was completely gimped by the "pay to win" mantra.
SWTOR is good, and has the amazing storytelling power of Bioware. But it does suffer from "WoW-cloneism."
I think I'd have to disagree with all of the above statements for both games other than swtors good storytelling power.
The microtransactions are no different than what we had in CoX when it comes to buying powersets, account services and costume sets. The only difference here is the lockboxes (super packs) are a big gamble with mostly junk as rewards. The character creation system here offers more costumes options from the start but less power options. Obviously here if you don't sub then how else would they make money? They don't have a true endgame system or special mods that are only available to subscribers. So they instead charge for the powers and the freeform spec. The smart choice here being to subscribe rather than spend 100s of dollars on archetypes and freeform slots.
Swtor is often referred to as a wow clone and I find most of the people that say this never past the first few planets or even the starting world. WoW has so much stuff in it and has all areas of gameplay monopolized that is pretty hard to make an mmo without it looking too much like it. swtor just has some traditional mmo gameplay in it and some similarities. But it's not at all a wow clone.
-
Been subbed to SWtOR since launch. It is indeed a wow clone. One of the many reasons this game was not as successful as it could/should have been.
-
For me I have to say that I'm finnished with MMOs right now. There is nothing out there like City of Heroes that's a matter of fact. I really want to like Champions Online or DC Universe and they are not bad games, but then I see so many things I miss like the easy teaming or the costume options. I try so many other MMOs, but I don't have to play anything I don't like, just because I just have to play an MMO right now.
Right now I'm back on my Wii... playing Super Mario and Dokey Kong... :-\
-
Swtor is often referred to as a wow clone and I find most of the people that say this never past the first few planets or even the starting world. WoW has so much stuff in it and has all areas of gameplay monopolized that is pretty hard to make an mmo without it looking too much like it. swtor just has some traditional mmo gameplay in it and some similarities. But it's not at all a wow clone.
Star Wars TOR's gameplay is cloned from WoW. Except it's Star Wars so every power has unique flavor of flashiness. But it has rage, mana (somewhat minute, unexpandable amount of it), skill trees, power trainers to sink money into, mounts, channeling abilities, the stupidly difficult dungeons and the Holy Trinity.
Been enjoying it so far for the "It's KOTOR 3!!" aspect, nothing more. Been doing Story Mode (read: Easy Mode) dungeons for the story only (and some money). I'm totally not in the "Go join our guild, 3/4 *stupid dungeon* *stupid difficulty*, already stuffed, 3 raids a week minimum".
For all the story (there are still "Go fetch me X pig skins", but it's very minute. The Class quests are very entertaining), and the universe (FORCE LIGHTNING, nuff' said), it is far better than a WoW clone. But for people that only see the mechanics of the gameplay, I can very well understand why they call it a "WoW clone".
-
And on top of that, the general (lack of) excitement for (nonexistent) upcoming content on the forums is contagious. Unlike the CoH, where there was always a lively discussion about the Next Big Thing that was going on (and there was always something - dozens of powersets, if nothing else), in CO there's no Next Big Thing at all. There's no hints of even a Next Little Thing. The main forum discussion involves continually asking why there's no Next Thing, and receiving no answers from any devs.
It's really depressing, because it is the closest to CoH right now. But even Jack doesn't care about it anymore.
I was convinced not to try CO by the general tone of despair on their boards. No new powers on the way, no new zones, no new content.
They had three months'... THREE MONTHS!... lead time to decide how to appeal to the CoH refugees who would (potentially) be coming over after Nov. 30. Nothing. They (Cryptic/PW) couldn't care less and couldn't be bothered. Instead they ran a Double XP Weekend... a nice gesture, but far too little, far too late.
They hired a couple of our best and brightest, Sean McCann & Jeff Hamilton... a writer who could've provided them with reams of story content, and a powers guy who could've patched up one of the weakest points of CO, their limited power sets... and promptly assigned them to Star Trek.
It couldn't really be much clearer that Cryptic/PW would like to be rid of Champions Online. I wouldn't be surprised if they were planning on flat-out canceling it prior to Aug. 31, but the overwhelmingly negative reaction to CoH's shutdown gave it a reprieve. At this point it sure looks like they're hoping to kill it through playerbase attrition.
-
I was convinced not to try CO by the general tone of despair on their boards. No new powers on the way, no new zones, no new content.
They had three months'... THREE MONTHS!... lead time to decide how to appeal to the CoH refugees who would (potentially) be coming over after Nov. 30. Nothing. They (Cryptic/PW) couldn't care less and couldn't be bothered. Instead they ran a Double XP Weekend... a nice gesture, but far too little, far too late.
They hired a couple of our best and brightest, Sean McCann & Jeff Hamilton... a writer who could've provided them with reams of story content, and a powers guy who could've patched up one of the weakest points of CO, their limited power sets... and promptly assigned them to Star Trek.
It couldn't really be much clearer that Cryptic/PW would like to be rid of Champions Online. I wouldn't be surprised if they were planning on flat-out canceling it prior to Aug. 31, but the overwhelmingly negative reaction to CoH's shutdown gave it a reprieve. At this point it sure looks like they're hoping to kill it through playerbase attrition.
I'm enjoying CO quite a bit. But with the knowledge that the game has not been doing well and may be the next to go. Trying not to get too attached just in case. I'm hoping the influx of CoHers will give it more of a chance to stay afloat, and it seems to me that pw doesn't close a lot of games, but I do see it for what it is, and know there's a chance it could be shutdown next.
-
I was convinced not to try CO by the general tone of despair on their boards. No new powers on the way, no new zones, no new content.
They had three months'... THREE MONTHS!... lead time to decide how to appeal to the CoH refugees who would (potentially) be coming over after Nov. 30. Nothing. They (Cryptic/PW) couldn't care less and couldn't be bothered. Instead they ran a Double XP Weekend... a nice gesture, but far too little, far too late.
They hired a couple of our best and brightest, Sean McCann & Jeff Hamilton... a writer who could've provided them with reams of story content, and a powers guy who could've patched up one of the weakest points of CO, their limited power sets... and promptly assigned them to Star Trek.
It couldn't really be much clearer that Cryptic/PW would like to be rid of Champions Online. I wouldn't be surprised if they were planning on flat-out canceling it prior to Aug. 31, but the overwhelmingly negative reaction to CoH's shutdown gave it a reprieve. At this point it sure looks like they're hoping to kill it through playerbase attrition.
No. They basically are like Paragon, they have limited resources.
And right now, most of those are being retasked to work on Neverwinter.
Sure, they could have seen a bump from a CoH promo.
But Neverwinter is their next cash cow.
I'm not any happier about it than you. But, if it came down to it, I'd rather have just had CoH never shut down in the first place.
-
[quote author=Copper Cockroach link=topic=7511.msg97463#msg97463 date=1356880685
I was convinced not to try CO by the general tone of despair on their boards. No new powers on the way, no new zones, no new content.
They had three months'... THREE MONTHS!... lead time to decide how to appeal to the CoH refugees who would (potentially) be coming over after Nov. 30. Nothing. They (Cryptic/PW) couldn't care less and couldn't be bothered. Instead they ran a Double XP Weekend... a nice gesture, but far too little, far too late.
They hired a couple of our best and brightest, Sean McCann & Jeff Hamilton... a writer who could've provided them with reams of story content, and a powers guy who could've patched up one of the weakest points of CO, their limited power sets... and promptly assigned them to Star Trek.
It couldn't really be much clearer that Cryptic/PW would like to be rid of Champions Online. I wouldn't be surprised if they were planning on flat-out canceling it prior to Aug. 31, but the overwhelmingly negative reaction to CoH's shutdown gave it a reprieve. At this point it sure looks like they're hoping to kill it through playerbase attrition.
No. They basically are like Paragon, they have limited resources.
And right now, most of those are being retasked to work on Neverwinter.
Sure, they could have seen a bump from a CoH promo.
But Neverwinter is their next cash cow.
I'm not any happier about it than you. But, if it came down to it, I'd rather have just had CoH never shut down in the first place.
i think the bolded part is how we all feel
-
No. They basically are like Paragon, they have limited resources.
And right now, most of those are being retasked to work on Neverwinter.
Sure, they could have seen a bump from a CoH promo.
But Neverwinter is their next cash cow.
I'm not any happier about it than you. But, if it came down to it, I'd rather have just had CoH never shut down in the first place.
Except Paragon was working on developing not one, but two other games at the same time they were working on I24 and loads of new costumes and about a dozen new powersets for CoH.
So they're not "like Paragon", because even with limited resources and their staff spread thin, Paragon still put time and effort into their existing product while they worked on new things. Sure, Cryptic has two "existing products", but even if Cryptic split their attention 50/50 between CO and STO, that still means a half-dozen new powersets and additions to existing sets, and another half-dozen for STO. (Where are the staff weapons? Where are the plant powers? Where are the water powers? Where are the control sets? Where are the elemental melee sets? Where is the native Mac client for all the Mac CoH players who now have nothing at all? Why aren't they at least thinking about working on those - or, if they are, why aren't they letting people know that they're thinking about working on those?)
This would have been the time for them to try to catch up to CoH to attract the tens of thousands of players that would have revitalized their game. Instead, they just shrugged and went back to making Yet Another Generic Fantasy MMO and ignored the players beating down their door.
-
For me personally, I'm playing a few games .. WoW to begin with, only reason is that there is no way that Blizz will ever shut down such a money making machine. I also play SW:TOR, just cause its Star Wars, and also Star Trek Online, just cause its Star Trek.
But, lately, I have gone to the past. Back in 2004, EA shut down the servers for Earth and Beyond, a space MMO. That community, even though a fraction of the size of the CoX community, reversed engineered the game, and has brought it back. Sure, its old, but its still fun! Today, 8 years after shutdown, Earth and Beyond is fully playable. That community is still going strong. Also, its free to play.
So, if you want to see whats its about, go to http://www.earthandbeyond.ca for a replica of the original EA web site, and you can get the game for free at http://www.enb-emulator.com.
Its quite spectacular what the EnB community has done. Not only have they recreated the game, but they have made it better.
C
-
On dual pistols and sexy moves...
I found out Phantasy Star Online 2 has them now with the gunner masterclass, and they're very reminiscent of the ones we had in CoH. Might be something to look into when the NA/EU release comes out in spring. The update introducing master classes might not come until 5 months after release though (and that's if Sega US can deliver timely content updates to a PS game this time around)
-
On dual pistols and sexy moves...
I found out Phantasy Star Online 2 has them now with the gunner masterclass, and they're very reminiscent of the ones we had in CoH. Might be something to look into when the NA/EU release comes out in spring. The update introducing master classes might not come until 5 months after release though (and that's if Sega US can deliver timely content updates to a PS game this time around)
That could be tempting. i used to play PSO on my Dreamcast and enjoyed it quite a bit despite being fairly grindy. i mostly played a... (been a while, um...) Android? Hunter? who generally used either dual energy daggers or an energy halberd IIRC. (Loved the animation for the dual daggers.) Plus my pew-pew character with the big rifle. Will have to look into PSO2.
Sadly i found CO pretty unrewarding, especially since they recently did something to my account that made it so i can no longer log in using my original Cryptic account, and the PW account alternates between giving me errors and telling me it doesn't exist at all when i tried to log in.
-
So, I decided to try The Secret World. The trailers suggested a very interesting style and I watched a bit of gameplay that looked very interesting. However, I'm thinking my machine is not quite what it needs to be for the game. I am able to log in but when I get to the character creation screen, only the UI shows. Where my character and the background is completely black. I figured "screw it" and decided to just log in with default appearance. Well, every time I try to log in to the actual game with my character, it crashes. My rig ran CoX great. I actually could run two of my accounts at a time with no problem. Every other game I've tried ran just fine.
Now, my rig is like 6 years old, so don't laugh when you read the specs.
CPU: 3.2Mghz Pentium 4 (yeah, single core... :P)
RAM: 2 gigs
Vid Card: GEForce 7600gs (it was bad-ass when it came out, haha.)
The motherboard is a Tyan server board that could support a lot more than what I have in it.
All things considered, I am thinking that it might be my OS. To be honest, I've never had a reason to upgrade from Window XP pro. Any ideas on what the issue could be? (I'm computer literate, I just have absolutely no drive to stay up to date on technologies.)
-
Try updating your graphics card's drivers first. Had a similar problem with CoH once on my desktop PC (which is even more ancient than yours).
-
Try updating your graphics card's drivers first. Had a similar problem with CoH once on my desktop PC (which is even more ancient than yours).
Actually, the game prompted me to do so when I first started it up. Still nothing. I am starting to think it may be my OS.
Yeah, my PC is antiquated. I've found PC years is like dog years squared. After a year or two, you can't really call them "up-to-date" anymore. I mean, I did build it with really good parts for the time. So, in comparison to other off-the-shelf PCs, it is really closer to 4-5 years old tech-wise.
-
Actually, the game prompted me to do so when I first started it up. Still nothing. I am starting to think it may be my OS.
Yeah, my PC is antiquated. I've found PC years is like dog years squared. After a year or two, you can't really call them "up-to-date" anymore. I mean, I did build it with really good parts for the time. So, in comparison to other off-the-shelf PCs, it is really closer to 4-5 years old tech-wise.
The Secret World is both demanding and somewhat buggy (causes hiccups even on high end systems), so if you are rocking a video card shipped in 2006, this may be the main problem. You may use this tool to check if the game is supposed to run with your chipset to be sure:
http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/pc-games/the-secret-world/gpu-analyzer
-
The Secret World is both demanding and somewhat buggy (causes hiccups even on high end systems), so if you are rocking a video card shipped in 2006, this may be the main problem. You may use this tool to check if the game is supposed to run with your chipset to be sure:
http://www.geforce.com/games-applications/pc-games/the-secret-world/gpu-analyzer
Thanks a ton for this link, Frog. It showed me my problem.
"Your PC's NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS is below the game's recommended specification."
Should be easily fixed. It's probably time for a new one anyway. Still, I don't see why it would let me get through all the opening crap, the server selection, and the character creator and then just crash the game.
-
Thanks a ton for this link, Frog. It showed me my problem.
"Your PC's NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS is below the game's recommended specification."
Should be easily fixed. It's probably time for a new one anyway. Still, I don't see why it would let me get through all the opening crap, the server selection, and the character creator and then just crash the game.
May be one of the quirks. It does the same thing for me, but if I wait a few seconds, I can see the environment slowly being rendered up and once that's done, the game is back at full speed. My video card is GTX 580 with the newest drivers, so it's not a performance issue.
-
May be one of the quirks. It does the same thing for me, but if I wait a few seconds, I can see the environment slowly being rendered up and once that's done, the game is back at full speed. My video card is GTX 580 with the newest drivers, so it's not a performance issue.
Hmm... Well, I checked the system requirements for the game. Being a cheapskate, I searched for a good deal and found a brand new GT 620 for 55 bucks. It's way, way above the minimum system specs (which is only a step up from what I have now, the GEforce 8800... go figure) so I hope it does the trick.
And when City of Heroes comes back, I'll have even better looking fieh to trow! :D
-
Star Wars TOR's gameplay is cloned from WoW. Except it's Star Wars so every power has unique flavor of flashiness. But it has rage, mana (somewhat minute, unexpandable amount of it), skill trees, power trainers to sink money into, mounts, channeling abilities, the stupidly difficult dungeons and the Holy Trinity.
One of the things that continues to irk me about SWTOR is how the open-world PvE stacks players up at fixed-location glowies, while the relatively small number of instances (read 'personal story) have arbitrary blocks across otherwise-open doorways that prevent you from entering if you're not the right class or don't have the correct mission... and I keep thinking how much 'bigger' the world would feel if the game were done more like CoH, where missions not explicitly open-world (and some that are, remembering instanced outdoor missions) were all instanced, so you didn't run into individuals or groups going after the same objectives at the same time you are and having to wait for glowie respawns. It wouldn't even be a problem if everybody who had mission X got the same map layout, as long as it kept you from seeing a half-dozen people chasing the same set of mission goals at the same time.
-
One of the things that continues to irk me about SWTOR is how the open-world PvE stacks players up at fixed-location glowies, while the relatively small number of instances (read 'personal story) have arbitrary blocks across otherwise-open doorways that prevent you from entering if you're not the right class or don't have the correct mission... and I keep thinking how much 'bigger' the world would feel if the game were done more like CoH, where missions not explicitly open-world (and some that are, remembering instanced outdoor missions) were all instanced, so you didn't run into individuals or groups going after the same objectives at the same time you are and having to wait for glowie respawns. It wouldn't even be a problem if everybody who had mission X got the same map layout, as long as it kept you from seeing a half-dozen people chasing the same set of mission goals at the same time.
Oh yeah and that too is from WoW, completely forgot about that.
Do you realize that doors in City are also arbitrarily-locked? We can withstand rockets and toss 2-ton titanium robots like ragdolls, but we can't open a stupid wood door if we are not in a mission, or a certain moment of the year ? It may be true that the game would feel bigger if all those doorways were closed and you thought there are can be an infinite number of things on the other side of all the doorways, but it's also nice that you don't have to reload every time ;) and it feels more real.
The glowie sharing is also a stupid choice in my opinion, but it has the advantage of allowing you to group also when doing the quests (did that the other day, but at the quest givers. Saw a man getting the same quests as me, so we grouped for an hour or two to get though them faster and with more xp) and to do several quests at a time... which I don't find this fun :/ it splits your attention unneededly.
-
Except Paragon was working on developing not one, but two other games at the same time they were working on I24 and loads of new costumes and about a dozen new powersets for CoH.
So they're not "like Paragon", because even with limited resources and their staff spread thin, Paragon still put time and effort into their existing product while they worked on new things. Sure, Cryptic has two "existing products", but even if Cryptic split their attention 50/50 between CO and STO, that still means a half-dozen new powersets and additions to existing sets, and another half-dozen for STO. (Where are the staff weapons? Where are the plant powers? Where are the water powers? Where are the control sets? Where are the elemental melee sets? Where is the native Mac client for all the Mac CoH players who now have nothing at all? Why aren't they at least thinking about working on those - or, if they are, why aren't they letting people know that they're thinking about working on those?)
This would have been the time for them to try to catch up to CoH to attract the tens of thousands of players that would have revitalized their game. Instead, they just shrugged and went back to making Yet Another Generic Fantasy MMO and ignored the players beating down their door.
That's just it. Cryptic hasn't "split" their attention between CO and STO.
They've still got a modest crew on STO because of the license, the fact that it's a cultural draw with a built in fanbase, and is making money hand over fist.
But the majority of CO's devs have been "temporarily" retasked to help out on Neverwinter.
Unfortunately, due to some of the early bungling by Cryptic and Atari, the game's fanbase is a fraction of what it was, as they've basically chased away would-be customers with their shoddy mis-management of the game.
-
Do you realize that doors in City are also arbitrarily-locked? We can withstand rockets and toss 2-ton titanium robots like ragdolls, but we can't open a stupid wood door if we are not in a mission, or a certain moment of the year ? It may be true that the game would feel bigger if all those doorways were closed and you thought there are can be an infinite number of things on the other side of all the doorways, but it's also nice that you don't have to reload every time ;) and it feels more real.
In CoH, the doors are eye candy unless you have a mission -- the instance you enter isn't part of the zone; in SWTOR, you can see into the screened-off area, but can't go inside. To make things even more schizoid, while in some places you have your conversations inside a walled-off part of the map, there are others -- on Tython where you talk to the Jedi Council shortly before leaving for the Republic fleet -- where you walk up to the door, click on the door, and then everyone else sees you just standing there with the little 'conversation' icon while you have your personal cutscene; apparently it was too much trouble to do it consistently one way or the other across the game.
-
That's just it. Cryptic hasn't "split" their attention between CO and STO.
They've still got a modest crew on STO because of the license, the fact that it's a cultural draw with a built in fanbase, and is making money hand over fist.
But the majority of CO's devs have been "temporarily" retasked to help out on Neverwinter.
Unfortunately, due to some of the early bungling by Cryptic and Atari, the game's fanbase is a fraction of what it was, as they've basically chased away would-be customers with their shoddy mis-management of the game.
As I've stated before on the CO forums in regard to STO getting more attention -
It's like this - if someone holds a gun to your head and says "I want you to say that Cher is the greatest singer ever." Do you get credit for it if you say that? Does anyone think you believe it? No of course not. (Sorry if anyone is a Cher fan out there, the metaphor is just the first thing that popped into my mind.)
The only reason STO is getting as much development as they do is that CBS and Paramount are holding their "gun" to Cryptic's head. They'd lose the IP license if they treated STO as poorly as they do Champions. Without that metaphorical "gun" held to their head, I think STO would be down in the basement with CO.
-
No. They basically are like Paragon, they have limited resources.
And right now, most of those are being retasked to work on Neverwinter.
Sure, they could have seen a bump from a CoH promo.
But Neverwinter is their next cash cow.
I'm not any happier about it than you. But, if it came down to it, I'd rather have just had CoH never shut down in the first place.
Personally, I'm hoping that once Neverwinter is up and running (And I'll likely be playing it, because I love D&D and Cryptic's two current games aren't too bad other than the lockboxes.) that instead of laying off a number of people like most companies do after a new game is finished they instead reassign those who would otherwise be laid off to work on new things for their older games. I'm also hoping one of those 'new things' will be porting the Foundry (For those who don't know, it's their version of AE) into Champions. STO already has it and from what I understand Neverwinter is getting an upgraded version of the STO one.
Of course, the former is likely PWE's decision rather than Cryptic's so that may be a foolish hope. And the latter wouldn't happen without the former, most likely.
-
Personally, I'm hoping that once Neverwinter is up and running (And I'll likely be playing it, because I love D&D and Cryptic's two current games aren't too bad other than the lockboxes.) that instead of laying off a number of people like most companies do after a new game is finished they instead reassign those who would otherwise be laid off to work on new things for their older games. I'm also hoping one of those 'new things' will be porting the Foundry (For those who don't know, it's their version of AE) into Champions. STO already has it and from what I understand Neverwinter is getting an upgraded version of the STO one.
Of course, the former is likely PWE's decision rather than Cryptic's so that may be a foolish hope. And the latter wouldn't happen without the former, most likely.
Do we know if there was a hiring binge in the run-up to work beginning on Neverwinter? Aside from the ones hired over from Paragon, I have not heard of one, but I don't exactly have my ear to the ground. If there was a large hiring, it stands to reason that we can expect a round of layoffs.