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If you're a player of the game, you might have run across me at some point. I'm TonyV, the creator of the Paragon Wiki web site and current owner and administrator of the Titan Network sites.

I'm really hoping that this won't be the end of the game. I've posted a message on the official forums here (and on the Titan Network forums here discussing what I'm intending to do. It might not work out, in which case four months down the line, we're not going to be any worse off than we are today. But if you're reading this here and don't browse the official forums very often, please drop by. As the game's continued existence will depend on a crowd funding effort, we really need you to stay plugged in over the next few months. I'll post regular updates on our Titan Network forums to let you know how it's going.

Only four months after Matt Miller promised "a ton of plans for content beyond Issue 24 and 25. We have a pencil sketch of the stories, arcs, zones, and trials for the next few years (I say pencil, because we still want to be agile and work to bring you things you actively ask for, things even you don't know you want yet!)" and less than two weeks after the release of a new power set. As much as I enjoy GW2, I am FURIOUS with NCSoft for pulling the plug on an eight year old game. The LEAST they could do is keep the servers up, or sell it to someone who will do so.

Only four months after Matt Miller promised "a ton of plans for content beyond Issue 24 and 25. We have a pencil sketch of the stories, arcs, zones, and trials for the next few years (I say pencil, because we still want to be agile and work to bring you things you actively ask for, things even you don't know you want yet!)" and less than two weeks after the release of a new power set. As much as I enjoy GW2, I am FURIOUS with NCSoft for pulling the plug on an eight year old game. The LEAST they could do is keep the servers up, or sell it to someone who will do so.

Yeah. This makes it a lot easier for houses with kids (or multiple kids).

It allows the kids to have a couple characters of THEIR OWN without filling up mom or dad's account. The ability to purchase more character slots (up to 48 per server now), gives you something to hold over them as "reward" too.

What I might suggest doing though.

Instead of sticking with the "standard" account. Buy a 1 month subscription up front. It allows them to play initially as a VIP player. Then, when they go back to F2P, they're a premium player (with elevated rights).

To see the differences, in tiers, go here:
http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/freedom/player_cho.php#tabs-4

Premium players, while they can't START supergroups (guilds) themselves, can join (and even lead) one.

Also, they're allowed to send whispers (private tells to people) rather than being limited to local and team channels only.

They'll also be able to use the in-game mail system (once their toon gets to level 10 IIRC). This allows you to send them stuff (enhancements, salvage, recipes, in-game currency), offline, in the game.

It'll also give them limited access to the invention and auction house systems without having to pay for it the way base F2P players do.

Also, the month of subscription gets them their first Paragon Reward (vet) token and 400 points ($5) they can spend in the store on whatever the heck they want.

Also, if the expense is a problem for staying subbed, take a look here as well.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/R_M's_Guide_to_Getting_Cheap_Months.

CoH's engine may not be as pretty as CO's is (kinda stands to reason since the CO engine is essentially a second generation of the same one in CoH).

Still, CoH has 7 years of content built. And it's fairly evenly spaced all along the leveling path. They even have stuff to do once you hit max level (Incarnates).
They have over 50 zones. 4 PVP, 5-co-op.
They have alignment shifting, so you can play as hero, villain, or two intermediary alignments.
CoH has made attempts to balance their ATs. So nothing is "clearly superior" to play. With the enhancement and invention systems, just about ANY toon can eventually become ridiculously powerful if you have a mind to make them so.
Also, the devs and art team keep pushing further and further with how much detail and such that they can wring from the current engine.
The development team is fairly involved with the community as well. Not as much as they were in the early days, but it's still REALLY common to see devs and artists replying in threads other than "official announcement" type things.
Their current Community Manager is also quite active. Every Wednesday there's a live video stream put on as well as he drags various and sundry members of the development staff from their caves and into the light.
Roughly 2 weeks ago, they just upgraded their servers for better performance.
Last week they launched Issue 21, which has the F2P component in and we're in the VIP (subscriber) head start right now. The new store is a bit...crude. But it mostly functions. And I expect it to eventually get a lot better. Usually their initial implementations on new UI stuff are somewhere between horrific and "WTF!?!?". But after a couple revs they tend to get a lot more usable as they get more and better feedback.
It really IS a micro-transaction system. You buy points in blocks of 400 (which is roughly $5). And most individual items are between 20 and 120 points. Sets of items, like complete costume sets are 3-800 points.
Also, VIPs (subscribers) get a dole of 400-550 (based on veteran status) points a month for free. Since monthly price for a sub is about $11 (can be $9.50 if you buy NCSoft 60-day time cards online), you're getting nearly half your sub back in points every month.
There's also the updated rewards program. Previously it was the veteran program. But they've put so much cool stuff into it in the last 7 years, it wasn't fair to expect new players to come in and wait ANOTHER 7 years before they saw it. Now vets start out just about where they were in terms of rewards BEFORE the switch-over, but usually are slightly higher. The rewards are now in 10 (#10 is only open to VIP players though) tiers. You have to fill up an entire tier before you move to the next, but while in that tier, you can prioritize which rewards in that tier you select first. Also, buying blocks of market points rewards you with extra reward tokens, moving you up faster. If you don't spend ANY money, you can move into Tier 9 (what would be 6-7 years of rewards) in about 3-4 years. If you want to get there SOONER, you can buy points. And none of the rewards or stuff on the market are game-breaking "sell power" type of things. But lots of them are DAMN nice to have (team teleporters, remote access to the auction house, remote access to personal vault (off-character) storage, etc). Tier 9 and VIP Tier 9 are a rotating rewards setup. Certain rewards will occupy these slots for a while then rotate out. And new rewards will replace them. The toons who claimed them don't LOSE them. They just get the opportunity to get NEW stuff so they don't hit cap and have nothing to do with their reward tokens.

You can hit the City of Heroes site to learn more about it.
http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/freedom/freedom_overview.php

Or you can hit the Paragon Wiki.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/City_of_Heroes_Freedo

If you can make us lazy, talentless bums get a glimpse of what it is to be a superhero (like CoD gives you the impression of being a supersoldier without the unpleasantries of getting your legs blown off by a mine), I'll gladly put down hard cash to buy your game. And maybe, *one* of the sequels, too :)

City of Heroes ?

The Asian MMO's seem to play similar to a hack&slash, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bABf-SL3rQQ&feature=related the action takes a while to get going, but notice what happens when he hits an enemy. HUGE floating damage numbers. No western MMO would do that, you have a health bar somewhere on your hud that tells you this. It might seem a small difference but think about what single player games have huge floating damage numbers and which do not. Beat-em-ups and hack&slash games, Mortal Kombat and Bayonetta (sorry if they are mispelled, they are not my kind of game) vs Fallout and well any Bioware game (why are there only two RPG makers?). I dare say that while I did enjoy a bit of Diablo, on the whole the two types of games cater to different types of players.

Actually, NCSoft's City of Heroes superhero MMO has the floating numbers -- gold for damage you're doing to your target, green for healing you receive, red for damage done to you, grey for the numbers associated with other players (the damage they do, healing they get, damage they take), plus additional information like 'Critical', 'Dodged', 'Deflected', etc. And CoH is a Western-centric MMO; it apparently didn't do well when they tried taking it to Korea.

Aion looks pretty, if you like flashy, at first glance, but its beauty is really only skin deep, it has the same very basic character customization that all asian MMO's have. There is no depth to flash and it lacks functionality. You swing a huge sword around in the same basic animation forever and it never has anything to do with the damage. You can sweep straight through an enemy and miss and do a move on enemy behind you 100 meters and score an instant kill. It is the ultimate example of a spreadsheet game with a disco lightening show bolted on top. Great if you like that, but since servers are being merged, apparently not many do.

Aion's game world has an amazing depth of detail, but the character customization falls into the same 'you are what you wear' visuals that make the choices you had for your character's appearance less and less of a factor as you gain levels and acquire flashier and more powerful gear. And while you acquire new and/or more powerful actions from skill books as you level, more and more of your combat ability comes from your gear, so that the actual attack you use doesn't make as much of a difference unless it has some sort of special effect associated with it (which may or may not be pumped by the weapon's stats). Perhaps I'm just spoiled by the character customization in City of Heroes, where even if you had two characters of the same archetype who picked the same powersets and pools, chose the same powers at the same levels, allocated slots identically, and slotted identical enhancements in them, the two characters may not look even remotely like each other, because a character's appearance is completely independent of their powers. But for all the detail that was put into Aion's world, it seems as though the characters become less and less distinct with increasing level, hidden behind common layers of shiny.

Or City of Heroes.

City of Heroes/Villains does since Issue 14: Architect.

From their site in untranslated marketingspeak, "Now, with Issue 14, this game takes another giant step, allowing players to design their own missions and story arcs to share with the entire City of Heroes community across all of our live servers. Using an intuitive interface, players can browse through other player created missions and create their own missions from the ground up. Players will determine details ranging from environments, mission objectives, and enemies, to written fiction and character dialogue; giving their stories nearly infinite depth and personalization."

> World of Warcraft players sometimes hang out in front of Ironforge and dance.

This isn't metagaming. Remember that MMORPGs derived from MUDs, which in turn derived from being a fancy chat program where someone gave the chatters something else to do besides just blabbing.

No, the WoW metagamers found fun when they, say, "contracted a highly fatal and fast-acting disease", then teleported to Ironforge and infected the bankers and auction house barkers before they died, and those in turn, with hellacious heal rates, survived but passed on the infections, killing thousands of playres.

Or standing on a roof in EverQuest and casting down on monsters to kill them. This is called "strategy" in most games or the real world, but is called "a bannable exploit" by that now-FAIL company that does little more than host a stable of also-ran MMORPGs for one low monthly price that almost nobody wants to pay for.

City of Heroes has one hell of a metagame, if you want to call it that, in the base editor system, where you can now stack all the stupid pre-made base items, to construct vastly cooler things like entire buildings from desks and decorative storage footlockers.

Cool items

Like a DJ booth

A missile array

And a gun requisition crib with chain-link fence

Whole buildings are constructed inside bases (a series of giant, bare rooms) now, where as previously you just dumped pre-designed decorations ala The Sims.

Attention MMORPGs: The next MMORPGs should allow base construction, but in addition to pre-made goodies, add bricks and other tiny building blocks that people can use to make their own stuff.

I help host and run a Soldat server... if you're not familiar with Soldat, it's basically a real-time 2D counterstrike of sorts. Players connect to a server and play with/against other people depending on the exact game mode, etc.

In the soldat server we run, all of the guns are allowed, and there's very little in the way of 'rules' other than not allowing teamkilling/etc.
( For those who suggest that if something isn't allowed, it should just be prevented via game mechanics... Users -can- teamkill (it's part of the game -dynamic- to prevent just spraying like a madman), but there's a built-in penalty system and eventually we'll ban people if they do it systematically. )

Every once in a while, however, something similar to the following happens...

The folks in the game creatively and organically decided to set up their own customs opposed to the rules

...in that the players in the server, usually a small number, all agree to play only with knives, achieving kills only by stabbing the opponent/throwing the knife at them.

That's all good and well, until...

Twixt seems more like a street preacher who hates everyone because they don't follow the rules like he does.

...until another player comes along, thinking that by connecting to our server which allows all guns, he should be able to play with a gun.. and is likely to do so and probably slaughter half the opposing team until one of those players yells "KNIFE ONLY, or leave!", or skips that step entirely and just votes for them to get kicked; which usually succeeds given that the existing players had agreed to play only with knives.

However, I say 'screw that'. That's not how -we- set up those servers. We set them up to have all the guns available, so people should be allowed to play with all those guns.. their (temporary) agreement to play only with knives is subject to -those- rules. They want to play with knives, that's great, but I have no qualms banning users who then get their panties in a twist when another user does use a gun.

This applies to various other situations as well. I don't count this as 'griefing'.. the player's playing exactly by the server's definition, and those who want to play the game in a different fashion are welcome to do so on a server that caters to that need.

Now I understand that in City of Heroes, you don't really get a choice of servers with different mechanics and such.

However, that leaves me with the descriptions of City of Heroes:
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/game_synopsis_overiew.html
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/game_synopsis.html (hero)
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/you_are_a_villain.html (villain)

All three describe battles between Heroes and Villains and whatnot. Not "Mingle socially and share recipes in our expansive game world".

Seems to me that those who do that are finding themselves on the wrong server.. and given that there's only one server as it were... in the wrong game.

Obviously this Twixt character was a jackass, but the other players should consider the (vulnerable) situation they put themselves in when they interact in the game in a manner different from what the creators, hosters, etc. seem to have envisioned.
Either that, or get ncsoft to change the game description.

I help host and run a Soldat server... if you're not familiar with Soldat, it's basically a real-time 2D counterstrike of sorts. Players connect to a server and play with/against other people depending on the exact game mode, etc.

In the soldat server we run, all of the guns are allowed, and there's very little in the way of 'rules' other than not allowing teamkilling/etc.
( For those who suggest that if something isn't allowed, it should just be prevented via game mechanics... Users -can- teamkill (it's part of the game -dynamic- to prevent just spraying like a madman), but there's a built-in penalty system and eventually we'll ban people if they do it systematically. )

Every once in a while, however, something similar to the following happens...

The folks in the game creatively and organically decided to set up their own customs opposed to the rules

...in that the players in the server, usually a small number, all agree to play only with knives, achieving kills only by stabbing the opponent/throwing the knife at them.

That's all good and well, until...

Twixt seems more like a street preacher who hates everyone because they don't follow the rules like he does.

...until another player comes along, thinking that by connecting to our server which allows all guns, he should be able to play with a gun.. and is likely to do so and probably slaughter half the opposing team until one of those players yells "KNIFE ONLY, or leave!", or skips that step entirely and just votes for them to get kicked; which usually succeeds given that the existing players had agreed to play only with knives.

However, I say 'screw that'. That's not how -we- set up those servers. We set them up to have all the guns available, so people should be allowed to play with all those guns.. their (temporary) agreement to play only with knives is subject to -those- rules. They want to play with knives, that's great, but I have no qualms banning users who then get their panties in a twist when another user does use a gun.

This applies to various other situations as well. I don't count this as 'griefing'.. the player's playing exactly by the server's definition, and those who want to play the game in a different fashion are welcome to do so on a server that caters to that need.

Now I understand that in City of Heroes, you don't really get a choice of servers with different mechanics and such.

However, that leaves me with the descriptions of City of Heroes:
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/game_synopsis_overiew.html
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/game_synopsis.html (hero)
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/you_are_a_villain.html (villain)

All three describe battles between Heroes and Villains and whatnot. Not "Mingle socially and share recipes in our expansive game world".

Seems to me that those who do that are finding themselves on the wrong server.. and given that there's only one server as it were... in the wrong game.

Obviously this Twixt character was a jackass, but the other players should consider the (vulnerable) situation they put themselves in when they interact in the game in a manner different from what the creators, hosters, etc. seem to have envisioned.
Either that, or get ncsoft to change the game description.

I help host and run a Soldat server... if you're not familiar with Soldat, it's basically a real-time 2D counterstrike of sorts. Players connect to a server and play with/against other people depending on the exact game mode, etc.

In the soldat server we run, all of the guns are allowed, and there's very little in the way of 'rules' other than not allowing teamkilling/etc.
( For those who suggest that if something isn't allowed, it should just be prevented via game mechanics... Users -can- teamkill (it's part of the game -dynamic- to prevent just spraying like a madman), but there's a built-in penalty system and eventually we'll ban people if they do it systematically. )

Every once in a while, however, something similar to the following happens...

The folks in the game creatively and organically decided to set up their own customs opposed to the rules

...in that the players in the server, usually a small number, all agree to play only with knives, achieving kills only by stabbing the opponent/throwing the knife at them.

That's all good and well, until...

Twixt seems more like a street preacher who hates everyone because they don't follow the rules like he does.

...until another player comes along, thinking that by connecting to our server which allows all guns, he should be able to play with a gun.. and is likely to do so and probably slaughter half the opposing team until one of those players yells "KNIFE ONLY, or leave!", or skips that step entirely and just votes for them to get kicked; which usually succeeds given that the existing players had agreed to play only with knives.

However, I say 'screw that'. That's not how -we- set up those servers. We set them up to have all the guns available, so people should be allowed to play with all those guns.. their (temporary) agreement to play only with knives is subject to -those- rules. They want to play with knives, that's great, but I have no qualms banning users who then get their panties in a twist when another user does use a gun.

This applies to various other situations as well. I don't count this as 'griefing'.. the player's playing exactly by the server's definition, and those who want to play the game in a different fashion are welcome to do so on a server that caters to that need.

Now I understand that in City of Heroes, you don't really get a choice of servers with different mechanics and such.

However, that leaves me with the descriptions of City of Heroes:
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/game_synopsis_overiew.html
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/game_synopsis.html (hero)
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/you_are_a_villain.html (villain)

All three describe battles between Heroes and Villains and whatnot. Not "Mingle socially and share recipes in our expansive game world".

Seems to me that those who do that are finding themselves on the wrong server.. and given that there's only one server as it were... in the wrong game.

Obviously this Twixt character was a jackass, but the other players should consider the (vulnerable) situation they put themselves in when they interact in the game in a manner different from what the creators, hosters, etc. seem to have envisioned.
Either that, or get ncsoft to change the game description.

There are two types of NPCs in PvP zones. Guards, which just instant kill enemies and have no penalties, and NPCs enemies, which generate PvE debt. Twixt would teleport players into the latter, to generate the harsher penalties. These penalties have no effect inside PvP zones, and he wasn't earning anything for these kills.

From an RP perspective, this makes no sense. How heroic is teleporting single villains into mobs where they'll get brutally mauled?

He also died a lot. When he did manage to kill players, he would take the opportunity to insult them. When he ran into a player without overwhelming odds he would simply run away. If they engaged other players on his faction, he would jump in and try to steal credit for the kill at the last moment.

So basically, he played the game in a way that was fun for him, but nobody else, and he thinks it's interesting that he was disliked for that.

Just go to http://boards.cityofheroes.com/ and search for Twixt, you'll pull up a few threads (many created since he posted this article) with people trying to figure out who he is and why he thinks he's so infamous.

There is at least one taker that I know of - City of Heroes recently released the ability for players to create their own quest lines, via a tool called Mission Architect

I haven't played it myself, but from all accounts it appears to be a success.

It has a few minor texture display problems for me, mostly involving textures on items in the very far distance etc. Other than that its been running better than the windows client did when I was booted into XP under Bootcamp

The client is free for download, all you need to do is get it and sign up your account.

Here's a guide to the Mac version:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12899365&an=0&page=0#Post12899365

You can then visit:
ftp://client.coh.com/US/

and download the client dmg and the updater
there should be some instructions near the end of this thread I think:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12897870&an=0&page=0#Post12897870

Or you can just buy it for $20 and download it online, just make sure to apply the code you get to your original account so the benefits apply to your old account and not some new account :P

It has a few minor texture display problems for me, mostly involving textures on items in the very far distance etc. Other than that its been running better than the windows client did when I was booted into XP under Bootcamp

The client is free for download, all you need to do is get it and sign up your account.

Here's a guide to the Mac version:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12899365&an=0&page=0#Post12899365

You can then visit:
ftp://client.coh.com/US/

and download the client dmg and the updater
there should be some instructions near the end of this thread I think:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12897870&an=0&page=0#Post12897870

Or you can just buy it for $20 and download it online, just make sure to apply the code you get to your original account so the benefits apply to your old account and not some new account :P

Your 'all posts critical of NC get deleted' position is completely refuted by the existance of this thread, which includes comment gems like "the animation engine was written by someone under the influence of some heavy-duty 'shrooms".

The quote you reference comes from Arcanaville, who is probably the most knowledgeable player with regard to the game's internal workings. I'm sure BackAlleyBrawler (Senior animator) chuckled when he read her comment.

City of Heroes was the first MMO any of its developers had worked on, and in some cases (see: Jack Emmert/Statesman), the first video game of any kind they'd worked on. There's a lot of systems that, frankly, suck. The state of the animation engine is why Power Customization is so cost-prohibitive as to be impossible, and why separate animations are needed just to use a non-weapon power (eg, Brawl) with a weapon drawn, even if the animation appears to be the same.

However, you are correct that dissent does not get deleted. Few things are ever deleted on the City of Heroes official forums: mainly, exploits and posts about delving into the game's *.pigg files. Flame wars get locked, and while any flame war is going to have dissenting opinions, the dissent itself is not what causes the lock.

You couldn't point me at them anyway, because they don't exist. You don't even have to show me a 'removed' post - if a post was deleted, there would still be posts referencing it. Your 'all posts critical of NC get deleted' position is completely refuted by the existance of this thread, which includes comment gems like "the animation engine was written by someone under the influence of some heavy-duty 'shrooms".

In answer to your second lie, here's the populations chart: For your perusal. Your assertion that subs are dropping by '8,000 a month' is so far off target it's hilarious. Taking a round figure of the most favourable negative difference on that chart, they were 200,000 about 2 years ago, and they're about 140,000 now. 60,000 / 24 months is 2,500 a month, not 8,000, and that's the worst case scenario from those statistics.

If you have a better source, please feel free to supply it, otherwise I'm forced to conclude that you're talking out of your arse.

COH just added a Mac client, and is fairly playable if you meet the requirements. I am certainly having only minor problems which I expect will be cleaned up down the road.

http://www.cityofheroes.com/

The game is still quite playable, there are people playing at all levels so its not difficult to get a group, and its the sort of game that you can log into, do a mission or two in half an hour to an hour and feel like you accomplished something.

It also has the best combat system mechanics and character creation system of any MMO I have played. Sure you need to like comic book superheroes or villains to have a feel for the niche the game occupies but when I first tried it I hadn't read a comic in over 30 years and I enjoyed the game immensely from day one.

Once you have experienced the Flight travel power in this game, every other MMO travel power will seem quite lame :P

City of Heroes/Villains is going to try something like this out. They've delayed it because it's proven to be a bigger project than they anticipated, though. http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/archives/2008/08/letter_from_pos_1.html

The angry players isn't something I thought about before, but even if your map isn't approved for general distribution, you can still play on it yourself or with friends, so I don't think it'll be a big issue.

We see unlockable demos in the shareware arena, but I don't think I've ever seen a big title go this route before, and I don't see why it hasn't happened yet.

You mean like Portal, or World of Warcraft, or Guild Wars, or Final Fantasy XI, or City of Heroes, or etc., etc.?

If you find you don't have a lot of time to play during a typical week, why not consider a more casual friendly MMO? City of Heroes/City of Villains is very casual friendly in the sense that you can login, play for an hour or so and know you accomplished something towards leveling your character. You can easily find a PUG on most servers, although the quality of players varies considerably and finding a good guild - Supergroup in COH parlance - is a good idea if you find you like the game.

The combat system is first rate, the grouped combat is awesome, almost any character type (Archetype or AT in COH parlance) is capable of soloing - although more support oriented classes are slower at it of course, and the game can be quite addicting once you get used to it. There are still tons of low level characters being leveled up that you can group with (the game is very prone to Altitis and many people are constantly making new characters). You can have a lot of characters per server so you can try out many of the ATs to see what suits you etc.

Its not a big PvP game, although PvP is available in special zones, but you are also never forced to PvP. Gameplay consists mainly of getting and completing missions (usually takes about 10-20 mins to complete a typical mission) and Task Forces (takes much longer as they are a series of missions for a group and you can't take regular missions until you complete the TF or quit it).

It has collision detection - unlike the majority of MMOs - and this is a major attraction for me an my friends. You can actually physically block a door with your character and contain the mobs etc, they can't just run through you, and you can't run through your teammates. The combat system is well designed, and each character has a definite role in most groups, although it can vary depending on your spec).

Its not for everyone, but its a great game, one of the best designed MMOs out there IMHO, and after years its still going strong and they are still adding (free) content to the game on a regular basis. It takes very little time to figure out how things work but there is enough depth that it takes a while to master a particular set of powers.

http://www.cityofheroes.com/ if you want more information.

What much of the commentary here misses is that a significant number of CoH and CoV players have been ASKING for in-game ads from real-world companies from some time.

Paragon City (and the Rogue Isles) are sprawling metropolises with billboards, public transportation, store fronts, movie posters, video screens, and the like. In a real city, these are all COVERED with advertising. We don't get quite the volume of advertising, fake or otherwise, in CoH, so our city feels a little lacking in that area. City of Gyros, Infront Steakhouse, and El Super Mexicano all have a ridiculous number of locations throughout Paragon City. It'd be neat to see at least a few of them replaced with other restaurants. If they happen to be real restaurants, then more the bonus.

COH Forum thread for player Q&A. COH Devs are typically very forthcoming with information, so there's quite a bit of real information here. Posts by 'Red Names' are either game devs or NCSoft reps.

COH Players discuss what kinds of ads they WANT to see.

Brian Clayton, manager of NCSoft Norcal where COH is developed, makes the announcement and discusses logistics.

Players discuss the announcement. There's some wailing and gnashing of teeth, but the discussion here is mostly on logistics.

What much of the commentary here misses is that a significant number of CoH and CoV players have been ASKING for in-game ads from real-world companies from some time.

Paragon City (and the Rogue Isles) are sprawling metropolises with billboards, public transportation, store fronts, movie posters, video screens, and the like. In a real city, these are all COVERED with advertising. We don't get quite the volume of advertising, fake or otherwise, in CoH, so our city feels a little lacking in that area. City of Gyros, Infront Steakhouse, and El Super Mexicano all have a ridiculous number of locations throughout Paragon City. It'd be neat to see at least a few of them replaced with other restaurants. If they happen to be real restaurants, then more the bonus.

COH Forum thread for player Q&A. COH Devs are typically very forthcoming with information, so there's quite a bit of real information here. Posts by 'Red Names' are either game devs or NCSoft reps.

COH Players discuss what kinds of ads they WANT to see.

Brian Clayton, manager of NCSoft Norcal where COH is developed, makes the announcement and discusses logistics.

Players discuss the announcement. There's some wailing and gnashing of teeth, but the discussion here is mostly on logistics.

What much of the commentary here misses is that a significant number of CoH and CoV players have been ASKING for in-game ads from real-world companies from some time.

Paragon City (and the Rogue Isles) are sprawling metropolises with billboards, public transportation, store fronts, movie posters, video screens, and the like. In a real city, these are all COVERED with advertising. We don't get quite the volume of advertising, fake or otherwise, in CoH, so our city feels a little lacking in that area. City of Gyros, Infront Steakhouse, and El Super Mexicano all have a ridiculous number of locations throughout Paragon City. It'd be neat to see at least a few of them replaced with other restaurants. If they happen to be real restaurants, then more the bonus.

COH Forum thread for player Q&A. COH Devs are typically very forthcoming with information, so there's quite a bit of real information here. Posts by 'Red Names' are either game devs or NCSoft reps.

COH Players discuss what kinds of ads they WANT to see.

Brian Clayton, manager of NCSoft Norcal where COH is developed, makes the announcement and discusses logistics.

Players discuss the announcement. There's some wailing and gnashing of teeth, but the discussion here is mostly on logistics.

PC gaming is killing itself courtesy of the sucktastic PC gaming experience. Compare:

1) I toss a disc in my Wii, turn it on, fire up the game, and play. I have fun.

2) I toss a disc in my PC and install it for 20+ minutes, depending on my disk speed, etc. I make sure my OS is fully patched and updated, probably with a reboot in there. I make sure my video drivers are up to date (which could involve game-specific versions of the drivers), with a reboot (or two if your drivers want you to uninstall them before updating... ATI I'm looking at you). Then I download the inevitable zero-day patches required to get something close to the gaming experience advertised on the back of the box. Then I fire up the game and hope that the copy-protection mechanism doesn't hate my DVD drive or any of the software I've got installed. Then I play, and hopefully my machine can handle the game at a decent frame rate.

I got totally fed up with #2 last year when Neverwinter Nights 2 and BioShock repeatedly boned me. These days, I only use my PC for playing City of Heroes/City of Villains, and only because there's no Mac client for it (c'mon NCSoft, there are a lot of Macs in homes these days). Other than that, I'm playing PS2, Wii and DS games when I want to have fun.

I'm busy with work, family, etc. and don't have time to screw around with an ornery computer. When it's fun time, I want to have fun, I don't want to sit around patching and updating things.

PC gaming is going to be 100% MMO and RTS in a couple of years if publishers don't get their act together. I'm not convinced they want to, since they've pretty much all got their fingers in the console pie as well.

I just hope they keep the game patching to a minimum. There have already been way too many PS3 and 360 games that required release-day patches, and the Wii version of Guitar Hero 3 is going to eat into Activision's profits this quarter while they send out fixed discs to everyone...

Where possible, I use Ubuntu. I haven't had experience with Apple products since I was forced to in highschool. Yeah, LOGO experience sure has been a big help....

Anyway, Ubuntu. I like it. Quite a bit. There are issues, to be sure, but I've mostly not had them.

I run 7.10 on my desktop(Windows won't even install, anymore) and things have been pretty problem free. The exception(s) are when I'd get cocky and tinker with something I really shouldn't have.

Even then, if the laptop had a better video card(It has an ATI Radeon Xpress 200M), I could probably do without Windows and run it under WINE. The card's just barely enough to run it under Windows.

True, but the content was significantly different. Maybe not quite as much as various games using the Half Life engine or somesuch, but close enough.

However, they're officially merging the two games into one soon, according to this announcement: http://www.cityofheroes.com/press/a_new_age.html. Then there's the expansions and sequels referred to in this announcement: http://www.plaync.com/us/news/2007/11/ncsoft_announce_23.html

Both were written by Cryptic and published by NCSoft, and IP was owned 50/50 by each on both games. Now it's 100% NCSoft owned, and a lot of the Cryptic folks who worked on them moved over to NCSoft. This is a massive win for the franchise, IMO, as it means there's no more conflict of interest with Cryptic working with Marvel on their MMO (even if they said there wasn't any conflict).

Solo RPG video games give you sense of being unique.
You are Neo or Luke Skywalker and noone else can have that power.
            Only you can save the world.
                        No MMO gives that today.
Even super heroes games like http://www.cityofheroes.com/ have so many heroes that you dont have the sensation of being so marvelous.
            You spend your time harvesting missions, badges and now crafting.
                        Not very heroic !

MMO RPG (or so called) emphaze on the community experience.
You share stories with others,
you show your achievements to others,
you develop your character with others.
You oppose and win against others.
These "others" are people,
            and this is important.
Even though oponents were bots with behaviour no different that humans,
knowning they are bots would render them not as interesting as humans.
            After all I prefer to chat a girl than a bot and
            I prefer to constantly win and humiliate another player rather than a mob.
OK, some would prefer chatting a bot...

Last comment, MMO RPG are no RPG.
I spent a tremendous amount of days playing table top RPG when I were young.
And the experiment is no comparison with computer RPG.
            Compared, computer RPG are really flat and
            MMO RPG are event flatter than solo RPG.
There is only basic heroism, limited sense of achievement and
            no way to come with innovative solution that game author did not imagine.

The killer game will provide real freedom and content ,
the sense of being unique and
still experiencing with tons of other players.

Just look at DAOC after Warhammer Online was announced.

Well, this isn't quite the same thing. With DAOC and Warhammer, that was pretty much the same team moving on to the next big thing on their own.

One thing Positron said in his letter to The Cities community was that the Cities and Marvel Universe will have totally separate dev teams. And with the kinds of cash Marvel and Microsoft can throw at Marvel Universe, Cryptic wouldn't have to siphon any money from the Cities' team. In fact, I doubt Jack Emmert would agree to this deal if he didn't think the Cities would be self-sustaining throughout the process.

IMHO, keeping the teams separate is almost a necessity. Neither team will want new features to be dependent on the other. Certainly, there will be a new client engine, since the Cities are OpenGL. Marvel Universe will run on both Windows and XBox 360, so Direct3D would be an engineering no-brainer even if Microsoft wasn't publishing the title. And, if nothing else, the inevitable rivalry between the Cities and Marvel Universe will push both teams to prove their own worth. Marvel Universe doesn't want to be seen as a mere "re-skin" of City of Heroes, with Jean Gray and Xavier's School standing where Ms. Liberty and City Hall used to be, and the Cities don't want to be reduced to one large beta test for Marvel.

... or you can play City of Heroes

The City of Heroes backstory timeline has covered a few similar events, notably the Might for Right Act, which "proclaimed super-powered individuals and vigilante heroes a valuable national resource subject to draft without notice into the service of the United States government."

The City of Heroes backstory timeline has covered a few similar events, notably the Might for Right Act, which "proclaimed super-powered individuals and vigilante heroes a valuable national resource subject to draft without notice into the service of the United States government."

I've never had to wait to log on to City of Heroes and City of Villains.

Server maintenance is generally an hour or less around 8:00 or 9:00 AM Eastern, and things are generally very smooth and happy. There have been problems when large patches are released (the big patch right before City of Villains was released caused a bunch of lag, etc. for people; in their defense, it was enormous).

Granted, there aren't millions of subscribers, but shouldn't the enormous piles of money sitting around at Blizzard HQ be able to pay for some additional '486 boxes to run as servers? ;-) Seriously, they must be 5' deep in greenbacks there.

You must be playing the wrong game, then. Or maybe I just happen to be playing the right ones. The one I happen to spend most of my time in is City of Heroes, and the people there are great. Almost every person I've run across in these games have been exceptionally nice people. And, as I said, I have a few good friends outside of the games now as a result.

Are there idiots? Sure. But to say that they're all idiots (or even to imply that most of them are) is just plain wrong, and as I said, a gross mischaracterization of these games.

And any company that tries to make money by deliberately catering to idiots will soon find themselves broke and out of business. (Or advertising their junk on late-night informercials.)

They probably mentioned CoH since NCSoft has published (or planned to publish) a fair amount of different MMOs in recent years, with CoH (arguably) being the most recognizable/successful.

Also an announcement that "Lord Recluse" no longer works on City of Villains was sneaked in in the last day or two.

NCSoft subtle announcement that Zeb Cook no longer works for Cryptic and they wish him well in future endeavors. Still we're all wondering what those'll be?

Well, allow me to recommend City of Heroes/City of Villains. This is a Superhero/Villain based game available in two flavors (although they can be installed Symbiotically so you can play both with just one subscription). You do have to pay $15/mo for it, but it meets all your other requirements I think. Its easy to solo, fun to play, can be quite challenging, and most importantly *almost* every type of character can solo more or less (some way better than others mind you), and you can easily jump on, do a mission for 20mins then quit, and feel like you accomplished something. As well, its very newbie friendly - particularly if you find a suitable guild to play with - as characters of every level can effectively play with characters at other levels via the Sidekick/Lackeying system that allows characters to temporarily assume a higher level when partnered with someone - if you did choose to group with people. The game is primarily focused on doing missions, and so combat oriented for much of its content, but it has some great storylines to follow, and the combat system is far superior to most other games IMHO. City of Villains is the newer of the two games, and thus the more evolved. City of Heroes will catch up with future expansions I expect.

For free games, you might be ok with GuildWars. Its a fantasy based combat game with some adventure/roleplaying elements. It is primarily PvP (player versus player oriented) and I personally didn't like it, but it doesn't have any monthly fees and you only need to buy the original boxed edition to play it. As the name suggests though, it may well be group PvP oriented and might not be as welcoming to a casual player. I tried it in beta and disliked it for various reasons, but your mileage may vary.

Links:
City of Heroes
City of Villains
Guild Wars
EVE Online

Hope that helps :)

Will we ever be allowed to know what the actual stats of our characters actually are? At the moment we're at the mercy of numerous disparate disagreeing partial or out-of-date databases.

Part of my original design was based on the assumption that those numbers aren't really needed in gameplay. One doesn't need to min/max damage per second in order to complete missions or battle in PvP. Take for instance fighting games - I've never seen a popular fighting game that gave exact stats for particular moves - and yet, hundreds of thousands of players love them.

Previous to World of Warcraft, there had never been a mass market MMP success. I thought part of that reason is that MMP's seemed SO complicated to the first time user. Character creation could take a half hour. Players would be moving values around into stats that they had no clue about. I remember receiving a "+3 necklace of Wisdom"...I then asked myself - "what the heck does Wisdom DO?" I scoured the UI, only to discover that there was no information on what these stats actually did in real gameplay.

Now that WoW has come out, and its stats certainly haven't killed its popularity, maybe I outthought myself!

Similarly, Cryptic's excellent City of Heroes hasn't had a single expansion (unless you're one of those folks who consider City of Villains to be an expansion) since release, although it has had six major updates released for free. New power sets, new archetypes (like classes in most regular MMOGs), new zones, new graphics, etc.

See, making your game more boring and work-like isn't a selling point. People play games to escape their boring lives, not collapse them into two dimensions.

Levels have survived because they're simple. That's why 30 years of RPG design experience have resulted in d20 games outselling everything else in the pen-and-paper world, and it's why all the most successful MMORPGs still have levels; even the ones created by fans of point-based, skill-based systems.

Have towns and areas around the town as common areas and then quests be instanced. To me this is something that no one has tried yet and could be the real answer.

Sounds like City Of Heroes to me.

Be nice if they'd create, or allow, a Mac OS X port of their games. I'd love to be able to play City of Heroes and City of Villains on my iBook in the living room instead of my XP box in the basement.

Rumour has it that NC Soft blocked Cryptic when they wanted to do (or allow) a Mac port. *shakes fist at Lord British*

With some games (such as City of Heroes), the purchase price goes to the game developer. The subscription fees (as well as customer service, maintainence, etc.) are handled by a completely different company. In the CoH example, Cryptic Studios created the game (and continues to create content updates on a very regular basis that they don't charge extra for), and NC Interactive handles the server maintainence and customer service. While I'm not silly enough to believe that Cryptic doesn't recieve some portion of the subscription fees (as a "royalty" or "license" fee, I'm sure), you're not truly paying the same people twice for the same game.

I wasn't interested at all until some friends "made" me try City of Heroes during a free trial period. I haven't played much of anything else (except my GameBoy Advance) since then.

Nearly everyone is a fanboy of something, but devotion to MMO's seems particularly self-defeating. (Needless to say, I speak from some experience here.) An evolving world is under too much pressure from too many sources to change in too many ways - it's a certainty that whatever drew you to the game in the first place will eventually be done away with, if only by the simple practice of leveling. And then you find the next game, and start all over again.

In a sense, Blizzard's hyper-Hollywood approach - they present a sleek, streamlined entertainment package in a very one-directional stream, from the developers to the players - works to their advantage. As with mass-market beer, you're assured that the experience of the game won't change too terribly much over months or years of 'consuming' it. There is simply too much money involved for anyone at Blizzard to be comfortable with any degree of risk.

Or to put it all in a few words, and come back to the original article - what do you expect? That's Hollywood.

According to Shacknews, City of Heroes are also affected by another disease.

Already been done: http://www.cityofheroes.com/

You don't see any stats.

Not only is City of Villains coming out (and I won a guaranteed beta slot in a contest! woot!), but so is City of Heroes Issue 5, the Forest of Dread.

It adds:

* 4 new villain groups
* New zone
* New task force
* 2 new "events" (in one, hellions are setting fire to a building and you have to stop them, and the other has something to do with trolls and superadine)
* 2 new power sets (Archery, and Sonic Blast)
* New debt system, new badges

Even cooler, a bunch of missions have been revamped with more complexity, like escort-the-NPC type missions and fighting off "waves of villains" (similar to the Terra Volta trial you go through to earn a respec).

Also, no waiting, because this got patched in today, you can now "auto exemplar" into a task force or trial, which means 8 level 50s can decide they want to do the Positron task force, and it will auto-exemp (lower) their effective level to 16 (the max for that task force) and lock them in; no more needing half the party to be in the real range, and no more getting booted from the TF team if someone drops link. Yay!