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City Of Heroes Beta Evaluated As Game Goes Gold
Thanks to GamersWithJobs for its detailed impressions of PC-based superhero MMORPG City Of Heroes, given just after the game reached gold master status, with an "official launch [of] April 28", and a (slightly inflationary?) "monthly subscription fee of US$14.99." The preview, from a "long time tester and fan of the game", notes: "When I entered City of Heroes for the first time, one of the things that quickly grabbed my attention was the scale--the towering statues, the twenty story buildings", before discussing the action-oriented gameplay: "Unlike almost every other MMORPG out there, combat in City of Heroes is designed to be fast paced and fun" The author concludes: "It's not a perfect superhero game, but it's a very good superhero MMORPG."
Gah! No capes! That's like a street-racing game with no oversized wings and Type-R windscreen decals, or a shmup without a spread cannon!
No capes! Gah!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Well, if it was a game starring everybody's favorite /. editor, it would be called City of Hemos.
Another MMO game that is crying for PvP (super hero's vs Villans) that doesn't include it. Can someone please do something different than the PvE (player vs enviornment) friendly co-op mode all of these games are coming out in? Some of us want MMORPGs where combat against humans is allowed and maybe even (akk) encouraged.
I am also playing in this beta, and things I have to say about are "wow". The beta is more stable than any of the day 1 releases I've played in, and I've played in pretty much all of them. The devs are making changes based on suggestions people are making (holy crap, devs that listen?).
Its also fun, because you can pop on and play for thirty minutes and quit. If you're friends are hella high level because they play religiously, no sweat... you have the Mentor/Sidekick system. So basically, ANY levels can group together... no more getting left in the dust by your friends who have no lives. ;)
One of great things about the Gamers With Jobs community is that our forums are teeming with gamers who also happen to be excellent writers. Paladin is no exception and today he has been kind enough to send in his impressions of the City of Heroes beta. He's been playing since January and he's been lucky enough to have played right through to the highest level range the game has to offer. This article is not to be missed if you have any interest in the now-gold MMORPG. Get to it!
Introduction
City of Heroes - long touted as the last, best hope of comic book fans everywhere, this MMORPG is finally nearing release. After years in development, a major change in the game's fundamental design, and fears of vaporware, comic book junkies everywhere will finally have a chance to get their gaming fix. Before I begin, a disclaimer: I am not a critic, or a professional reviewer, and this article is in no way intended to be an objective review of City of Heroes. Neither am I in any way associated with or employed by Cryptic Studios or NCSoft. I am, however, a long time tester and fan of the game. I've been waiting for this since I signed up on the City of Heroes forums in October of 2001. It's been a long wait, and to my delight I'm not disappointed.
In the Beginning
When you start up the game for the first time you have to create a character. Character creation is definitely one of the high points of City of Heroes, and most people will spend a lot of time making character after character. I know I did. I managed to fill up all eight slots on each of my two beta accounts (closed and pre-order).
The first decision is to pick an Origin. The Origins are Natural, Technology, Magic, Science, and Mutant. At this point, Origin has little effect on gameplay other than to determine who your first enemies will be, and what enhancements you can use. This may change at a later date but at this point it's more of a role-playing, character concept choice than anything else. I decided to pick Science, as it fit my character concept.
The second decision is to choose an archetype. There are five archetypes in the game, which roughly correspond to the basic classes of other games. Each archetype has a primary and a secondary powerset. The primary powerset is the defining power group for the character, and represents their most powerful abilities. The secondary powerset is used to supplement their primary abilities, and isn't as powerful. The archetypes are as follows:
Tanker:
City of Heroes' immovable object. Tanks are designed to soak damage for their team, and do so far better than any other archetype in the game. The Tanker is also an able bodied meleer, able to dish out decent damage at melee range. Tankers get to choose a Defense powerset as primary, and a Melee powerset as secondary.
Scrapper:
Equivalent to a light tank, the Scrapper specializes in dealing out mass amounts of melee damage as quickly as possible. Scrappers are more fragile than Tankers though, so don't really want to be the focus of enemy attention. Scrappers get to choose a Melee powerset as their primary, and a Defense powerset as their secondary. One quick note here--the powers available to Scrappers and Tankers are different, with only a few sets overlapping. Both have access to the Defense powerset Invulnerability, but all Scrapper melee sets are unique to Scrappers, as are their other defenses.
Defender:
Defenders are the closest thing you'll find to a cleric in this game. Healing, while nice, is not a necessity in City of Heroes, and many Defenders don't even have healing powers. Defenders get to choose a Buff/Heal powerset as primary, and a Ranged attack powerset as secondary. Sadly, the Buff/Heal powersets available to Defenders are exactly the same as the ones available to Controllers, except that the Defender powers are stronger in effect.
Blaster:
The ranged damage king, this is City of Heroes' nuker archetype. As fragile as most mages,
This game is really great.
:)
:)
Ive played about every mmo game which came out since uo and non makes such a good first impression as COH.
If they will play their cards right and give trials versions to everyone and their mom it will be big.
The game is basically a GTA gone online. Everyone is a super hearo ( obviously ) and gets the super power he desires easily. At level 6 you can pick up powers like flying or hulk style super leaping ( they mean it, you will jump over buildings ).
When you just walk around in the very busy streets you will see gang wars you can break up or see old ladys beeing robbed of their purse. You pick up missions ( unfortunatly pretty simple ones ) from your different contacts who usually put you up against different villain groups.
Fighting is the best part of the game by far, Its amazingly action packet and moving while fighting actually can give you an advantage. It absolutly statisfies my need for action, i don't have to fire up a FPS after a long play session to get my balance back
anyways, give it it a try if you can, chances are you will enjoy it. The game will not put you up against rats I promise
I'm playing in the Beta and am having a really fun time with the game. I'm impressed with the stability and what has been worked into the game so far, and I'm more than patient to see what other cool things they work into the game in the future. A game can't support everything from the offset, gotta have some room to grow, so I'm not concerned about the lack of PvP and other things that seem to bother a lot of people.
The one thing I am concerned about though is the price. I'm not really interested in dishing out $49.95 for the game (and one month of playtime) and then $14.95 a month thereafter. That's just too much for cash for me to justify. I'm not anywhere close to poverty stricken, I make good money and can afford to spend that much on a game. Unfortunately as much as I'd like to participate I don't see it as *worth* my money. Am I alone in this thinking?
Droping $49.95 and having 3 months worth of online play, that seems worth it in my books (I'm still thinking high, but I'd pay it), but this cash grab just strikes me as unreasonable.
Can someone explain how these pre-order boxes at places like Best Buy work? What is actually in the box? How do I get the actual disks?
Thanks
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
They're probably trying to avoid the slashdotting.
I'm currently playing the online version of the Lord of the Rings CCG. This game does have the unfortunate CCG pricing model (i.e. the more you pay, the better options you have) but it's certainly possible for a player with a good idea of what they want to get a tourney winning quality deck for around $50-70. (This approach requires lots of camping in the trade lobby to find people willing to give you stuff you need for the limited stuff you have, but that time investment is no worse than any other MMO.)
Anyways, the good news to the otherwise somewhat newbie-unfriendly pricing is that there's no mandatory recurring fee to keep the collection that you have. (There's an optional $10 monthly membership that gives you more than $10 worth of stuff and is intended essentially as a loss leader, since members get a 20-40% discount on further purchases, encouraging you to spend more. The membership pays for itself for anyone spending at least $10 a month on the game, but again, is optional if you know you won't be playing for a few months and want to cancel it until you come back or just want to cut yourself off.) This means that I'm not getting significantly worse value for my money dollar for dollar than the people who spend hours and hours playing, as one does in a monthly fee use it or lose it payment scheme.
The CCG model does require a certain resignation that every so often you'll face someone who destroys your puny deck with their massively larger collection. This also, from what I hear, is common on PvP MMO's (LOTRO is PVP only, there are no AI opponents yet, even for tutorial). But at least here once you get started, all that matters is how well the ~70 or so cards you brought to the table work together to win you the game. Not how much time you've spent (though playtesting will help you pick which cards to bring), not how much the 70 cards you have are worth, and DEFINITELY not how much the cards from each of your collections that aren't being used this game are worth. Knowing you've beaten someone who spent 10 times as much as you on the game? Priceless.
O.K. But what if we compare it everyone's favorite FPS movie serial?
Oh, wait. That doesn't compare well either. Never mind.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I am liking City of Heroes a lot. However, I only really started enjoying it when I replaced my ATI 9600XT with a GeForce 5900XT: the game was crashing constantly with the ATI card.
There are server issues (well, it is a beta) but it is pretty stable.
One annoyance though is that you pick your name AFTER the creation process, so you might not get the name you want, making that big G on your chest sorta useless if you can't get your name.
Anyhow, back to playing!
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Having played in the beta for both of these up-and-coming MMO's I was amazed to hear that CoH is going gold.
Just today I saw multiple bugs in CoH - broken quests, getting stuck in the terrain, people exploiting hover combined with ranged attacks, mobs with no pathing that wouldn't move to attack you, to name a few.
Not to mention the massive changes they are making to various powers in a seeming last minute attempt to balance the combat system, and quests that take hours to find the overcamped spawns you need.
As a beta tester I'm happy to tolerate this stuff, but I suspect they are going to have more than a few irate customers when they start trying to charge money for this.
Sigs are for the weak.
Zen
He used the word "shmup."
I'm not big into online games, much less mmorpg games. I am into superheroes however, but at $14.95 US per month, plus the initial cost of the game, I'm not going to be into these superheroes.
,or at the very least have the monthly fee's reduced each month you're a subscriber, eventually recucing the monthly fee to nothing for the user... because the customer is after all doing the developer a favor by playing the game, not vice versa.
:)
I read in a thread that its $49.95 for the game (including a month online), and $14.95 per month, after a year of an and off playing, it'll cost you $214.40 USD. Imagine that. That is ridiculous.
RETARDED EVEN!!!
Besides the cost, there is an idea at work here that I just find nauseating, and should no longer be condoned by gamers.
By it being a mmorpg, the players themselves are making the game worth playing. And what do the developers do to thank them for making their game worthwhile? They charge them more money. What crap. I have a real problem with that, especially when you have to pay for the game plus a monthly fee to play it. The game should be free
I payed $70 CDN for GTA: Vice City, and ya know what? It doesn't ask me for more money each time I want to play it. Would you buy an arcade machine for yourself, and not set it to free play?
This whole concept blows my mind. I understand that by interacting with real people in an online universe, the experience might be more diverse, or a bit richer, but I can't see why a person would buy a game, then pay to play it.
Its not even like you're paying to play a new game or an improved game each month. Its just going to be same junk over and over.
As a life long gamer, I enjoy paying for games like Metal Gear Solid 2; Where I know that the developers but a lot of hard work into the game and created a experience for me... What I find repulsive is the idea that a game company is pimping me out for $14.95 USD/month to other users, so that they can make even more money.
THAT CRAP MAKES MY SOUL ROT!
I know no one is forced to pay these monthly fees, but just do me a favor and don't even start.
Looks like Lineage II and City of Heros will be launching on the same day. I cant imagine how anyone could launch two MMOGs in one day. Especially when Lineage II choked with the start of open beta.
You may find my appearance and demeanor foolish, but it is you who plays the fool.
Well, I'm one of those people you "hate"; I run an online RPG which charges a monthly subscription fee and feel it's a better deal than most other entertianment, games included. But, allow me to point out some fallacies in your argument.
First, let's get the money out of the way. You think $50k profit on 100k users is impressive? That's $6/year per customer. That's a shameful amount for any business. Many companies make at least that much profit off a customer in one visit without the costs of developing an online RPG that can hold 100k subscribers.
But, let's focus on games as you requested. So, let me ask you: when was the last time you negotiated a peaceful agreement between opposing groups in UT2004? What? Never? That's funny, because someone posted about doing that very thing on Meridian 59 just the other week. See, politics is an important force in some online RPGs, and an interesting way to engage in player vs. player competition. The problem with UT2004 is that the lack of persistence means that there is no reason for deeper interactions between players in the context of the game. My only options in UT2004 is to shoot my enemy before s/he shoots me.
It's the persistence that give online RPGs the depth you don't find in other games. Politics is just one thing, but meaningful conflict is another. When I kill a player in Meridian, that player suffers penalties. Those penalties don't go away once the game resets (except for some special events), so that player has a reason to hold a grudge against me. I have to deal with the consequences of my actions, which leads to interesting interactions between players.
In the end, it's that persistence you pay for in a online RPG. You're not just paying for the game, but also for the service that keeps the servers active and available for you to play on, and polices the game for cheaters, etc. This isn't to say that everyone has to love persistence and dealing with the consequences for their actions, but there are a lot of us that really do appreciate this and think that a monthly fee is well worth it.
And, to pimp my own game for a bit, some games are great bargains. Meridian 59 is only $10.95 per month (not $15 like City of Heroes will be), and does not require the purchase of a box or expansions. We keep expanding and improving Meridian; in fact, we're in the middle of a rewrite of the rendering engine to improve the graphics of the game. All as freely downloaded content to the players of the game.
In the end, you'll be hard pressed to find any other form of entertainment, including games, that has as low a buyin as $10.95 and is that cheap per month.
My take on things,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
Most of the things you've mentioned in this post were not around in January-February of the beta test (they're pretty recent bugs, except the hover exploit), so here's to hoping that they're quick fixes and won't impede the game's release.
Hot Soup - Lethal Doses
it doesnt matter if Lineage 2 and CoH are launching the same day, they both target different parts of the market so it either of them dont affect each other. Its like Everquest and Everquest 2. Evequest is more quest based and directional oreiented while EQ2 will be towards more independant owning houses etc U0. so Eq would be competing against UO:X, while EQ2 will be competing vs U0
From the sounds of things Meridian 59 is much more in line with what I consider reasonable pricing (actually, I consider it exemplary pricing, although I've never played the game myself.). I appreciate the fact that although there is a monthly fee there is no upfront charge to 'buy the game', and $10.95 is (IMHO) a very attractive monthly pricepoint.
My initial post in this thread may not have described it properly, but I have no issue with a monthly subscription charge. For this kind of game I actually *expect* a monthly subscription charge (as long as I don't run out of content playing at a reasonable rate). My real issue is with the high up front cost for CoH ($49.95) providing only 1 months worth of play coupled with what I consider to be a rather high subscription charge.
In the end, it doesn't matter to me how much it costs to develop, nor how much money the company is making. What matters to me is my perception of the value of my money. City of Heroes does not provide proper value for my money mainly due to the pricing of the initial package.
I don't mean to sound whiny, in the end all that it means is that I won't buy/play their game. I won't put down the game itself, it's a ton of fun. It's mostly stable, I love the variety in powers and the customizability of the heroes, and all in al playing in the Beta has been a good experience. For anyone who feels the pricing works for them I say by all means, go for it.
That's why MMORPG's will eventually die.
It is official; Slashdot confirms: MMORPGs are dying.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered MMORPG community when Slashdot confirmed that the MMROGP market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all games. Coming on the heels of a recent Slashdot survey which plainly states that MMORPGS have lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. MMORPGs iare collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent PC Gamer games test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict MMORPG's future. The hand writing is on the wall: MMORPGs face a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for MMORPGs because MMORPGs iare dying. Things are looking very bad for MMORPGs. As many of us are already aware, MMORPGs continue to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
MMORPGs have lost 93% of their core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time MMORPG developers Raph Koster and Richard Garriot only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: MMORPGs are dying.
All major surveys show that MMORPGs have steadily declined in market share. MMORPGs are very sick and their long term survival prospects are very dim. If MMORPGs are to survive at all it will be among roleplaying dilettante dabblers. MMORPGs continue to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save them at this point in time. For all practical purposes, MMORPGs are dead.
Fact: SCO are dying
Tighty Whiteys and a cape! Seriously, though, there's going to be a big hike in "costume sales" once this thing hits market....
Massively Multiplayer Game. NWN rocks, but it's not a MMG. 64 is bigger than most games, but MMGs are all about thousands of players.
While you're at it, have a look at how all that user-created content is delivered. Players have to go out and download it and install it in what can be a confusing process if the module uses lots of custom content.
MMGs deliver their new content (except outright expansions) to all the players automagically with no outside work required. Not in the same league.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.