Slashdot Mirror
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."
PvP is being tested for FFXI, think there was a slashdot article mentioning it a week or so back
How to Speak Leet
I was under the impression (from over a year ago, around one of the FIRST game delays) that there was going to be a PvP arena that would allow characters to challenge each other for fame and popularity and whatnot.
Granted, it's not nearly the same as PvP in normal environment, but at least it was considered.
Has this changed from the up and coming release, or is it still a planned way off?
They're probably trying to avoid the slashdotting.
No matter what game it is you play, even GTA, the player is always viewed as 'the hero.' If a player was considered to be 'the bad guy' or 'the villian' then his goal would be, presumably, to 'destroy the world' or 'take over the world'.
So what would happen if a clan/guild of 'bad guys' actually went out and succeed in that? The servers go down and never come up again, game over? Considering there are players in MMOGs that find/exploit/break bugs daily, reach the level cap monthly, and unlock every feature in the latest update by next Friday, you KNOW someone would eventually succeed at this if there wasn't a system put into the game to automatically prevent them from doing so. And in which case, being a bad guy would cease to be fun since you could never fully role play as 'the bad guy'.
Same with PVP systems. Whats to prevent PKers from camping newbie areas and smacking newbie down left and right? Sure it sounds fun to you with you level 50+ uber decked out wizard, but for the level 3 wooden sword equiped newbie its not. When that level 3 newbie gets smacked down for the fifteenth time, guess what? He quits playing the game, and the company loses money. And you know what else, that happens.
True story : My friend bought Asheron's Call 2 a month after the game came out. He said it was cool so I picked it up. I finished the newbie area in the beginning and then went through the portal to enter the world.. only to get smacked down by 2 level 20-30 wizards who were owning the newbies as they came out. Some players tried to run down the hill to get away, fireballs chased and kill them. Others tried to jump off the hill... but were killed when their wimpy level 3 selves smashed into the ground 5 stories down. A few berserk ones tried to attack the wizards... no chance, they were sitting on the hill behind the portal and you couldn't get up there without knowing exactly which path to take up (bug abuse).
After seeing 6 people get killed at least 3 times each, and getting killed 4 times myself, I quit, I uninstalled, I unsubscribed, and I never looked back since. You want PVP in a game? Go figure out a way to implement it into a game without fucking newbies in the ass. Otherwise quit complaining and go play Morrowind if you wanna be an uber-god character and smack around some helpless NPCs.
I understand all of that, but what I'm saying is they can go one way or the other. They can charge an upfront fee for a game and let us play it online, or build an online game and charge us to play it online. Don't charge us for the game, then charge to play it online. I'll pay for a game if the game itself is going to be providing my gaming experience. But I think its just wrong to pay for a game, and then pay to play it when other users (who are paying to play it with me) are making the game worthwhile.
:)
Make some kind of system that loads with the game that is a distributed network or sorts, like peer 2 peer load sharing. I don't know the logicistics of that, and that might not even work, but that's besides the point. I don't pay to get into a club, then pay an hourly fee for being there. You don't pay for parking when you go in to a lot, then when you leave pay again for each hour that you've parked.
I don't mean to be saying that its any less of a game if its made to be all online, or that the developers are hacks, but I just don't believe that they are the type of game that you should pay for, then pay to again play.
If people want to say "OK developers, charge me $14.95 USD per montth to play this game that I've already payed for". That's fine. They're just adding to their own hell for now. But it won't be fine when it gets the point that all content is delivered online, and the price has been set so high be previous precedents, that it screws us all in the end. I know that's probably way down the road, but what can I say... It could screw us all.
And why would I start building a server farm anyways? I don't like mmorpg.