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City of Heroes Issue Four Released
The fourth free expansions pack for City of Heroes has been released, and it's quite a doozy. Included in the latest release are a ton of new costume options, new content, and (most significantly) large coliseum where heroes can battle it out in PvP battles. Statement by Jack Emmert from the article: "I believe PVP will supplement the game while not detracting from City of Heroes' missions or story arcs...I see the PVP arenas as a way for players to hone their skills and as a change of pace from arresting villains."
It's an MMORPG, like Everquest or World of Warcraft -- but with superheroes and more focus on casual gameplay (no loot, instanced missions instead of spawn camping, sidekick system so you can fight across levels, etc.)
It's a lot of fun, been playing it for a year. To play devil's advocate, because it's casual oriented, it's not as deep as other MMO's; more like Final Fight than Street Fighter, swapping action and simplicity for pacing and depth.
There's a lot of contention over what Issue #4 has done to the game, good and bad. Lemme give a brief overview of the changes.
1. A PVP arena. It's really an amazing piece of work, a huge addition to the game. The question is, will you really want to play in it? Certain classes ("archetypes") have innate advantages due to higher offense and defensive mixes, while others suffer because they don't have enough of either. Odds are more balancing will take place as the days go on; they've come far from when the beta of the arena went up, but still have farther yet to go.
2. New costuming. The costuming system in COH is already top notch, and this adds more elements to it. Mostly it's asian-themed items but there are other generic items in too. Some have clipping issues which will need to be resolved, but it's not too shabby. It also introduces body physique / face sliders like in Star Wars Galaxies.
3. Power changes. The alien archetype they introduced got serious boosts, other powers got little boosts... but as with ANY MMORPG IN THE HISTORY OF TIME, some changes are going to be downward rather than upward. (You can't "buff everybody, nerf nobody" without ending up in a nuclear arms race.) So, if you hit COH forums you'll see OMG sky is falling type posts from folks who now have to change their play style. But... again, to be fair, some of the changes are really phenominally heavy handed. The devs have admitted that they're looking at alternate ways to get the effect they want without harsh penalties, and they're starting to analyze the archetypes one at a time to bring them into balance. It'll take time.
Like any MMO it's got plusses and minuses. Each issue releases new toys to play with and new changes to deal with. City of Heroes gets a big fat recommendation from me; even with the issues-with-its-issues, it's still a lot of fun and very good for casual gamers who want to try an MMO but don't want it to be a second job.
So... can you be evil? Can you mow down civilians?
Not yet. That's in City of Villains, which is due out later this year / early next year / dunno. It's practically ANOTHER MMORPG, rather than an expansion pack, since villains have their own areas, own missions, own power sets, etc.
I kinda doubt they'll let you wander into Atlas Park and start ganking 1st level heroes and civilian NPCs, though. They've said all along PVP will always be consentual; and Arena PVP definitely is.
City of Heroes was the first MMO I ever played. I don't have a huge amount of time to invest in gaming, so a more casual MMO was a good start. It took me a total of 10 months to hit level cap, which probably sounds ridiculous to some people. I just took my time, played a few different characters and generally enjoyed myself. :D
I really have to commend CoH for making a relatively bug free MMO. Sure there have been bugs, but nothing game killing and for the most part not highly irritating. In contrast World of Warcraft which I am now playing is still extremely buggy more than 6 months after launch. I've had my character in WoW stuck logged in to the game after a crash for an entire day.
The one thing about CoH is that it really is a fairly simple game. The game revolves around combat, and most of the depth comes from combat tactics. With so many power sets to choose from, there's a lot of flexibility in developing your characters. Outside of combat, there really isn't anything to do except maybe play with changing up your costume.
This is both good and bad. On the one hand CoH is free from a lot of the standard MMO bullshit (crafting, seeking out mad loot, running out of money), on the other hand it doesn't offer any additional gameplay options outside of combat. I can't really say that having to spend time working your day job as your secret identity would help the game much.
I'd really love to see super bases or something that would give incentive for super groups to be more than just a convenient chat channel. More large scale raids like the end game Hamidon run would be cool too.
Oh yeah and we have alternate dimensions - but where is the secret Moon base?
Sometimes my arms bend back.