I have been playing CoH and CoV from their respective beta's. I am still a happy casual player. I get on to the game (and yes, regardless what anyone tries to tell you, this is ONE game here) for about 8-20 hrs a week now (used to play close to 40 hrs a week or more when I was out of work for a while).
Yes, CoV is CoH with different colored UI and just different ways of presenting the same thing. The CoV side needs some extreme work in getting the first 15 levels of the game to be a little more varried. It lacks the CoH side's origin-driven tree structure where you could at least have a little bit of difference in the missions that people got. CoV suffers a lot in this spot part. Especially level 1-5.
However, I am sure the Devs will continue to put a great deal of work into the game and evolve the CoV side as they have the CoH side. I totally expect to see CoV get more villainous and CoH get more heroic.
Tell me... how many other MMO's out there give you FIVE major updates, containing new Archtypes (classes), races, content zones with hours and hours of new game play... all in the 18 monthes after launch? And expect to KEEP doing that. AND FOR FREE! Then their first add-on that costs money is not only a DOUBLING in the amount of content, but can be played Stand Alone as well? (Oh, and no one has mentioned the fact that those that have both games get an additional 4 character slots PER SERVER.)
No, CoH/V is NOT the perfect MMO. Neither is WoW. (I love WoW's UI, level-while-questing rather than quest-for-level concept, well thought out graphics, and friendlieness to the Mod'ing comunity.) But what CoH/V -is- is a step in the right direction in character customation, developer interaction with the game community, and pro-activeness about evolving the game.
I sure wish some other MMO's out there would learn from their innovations. And if you want to play people with fantastic powers in a modern setting... it rocks. But then I am a comic-book fan. So take my comments with a grain of salt.
I can't wait to see what Cryptic will turn out next. They've done the comic-book thing from both sides of the same coin. Let's hope they take their way of being character-focused and mission-focused to the next level and show us whatelse new we can do in the MMO space.
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I have been playing CoH and CoV from their respective beta's. I am still a happy casual player. I get on to the game (and yes, regardless what anyone tries to tell you, this is ONE game here) for about 8-20 hrs a week now (used to play close to 40 hrs a week or more when I was out of work for a while).
Yes, CoV is CoH with different colored UI and just different ways of presenting the same thing. The CoV side needs some extreme work in getting the first 15 levels of the game to be a little more varried. It lacks the CoH side's origin-driven tree structure where you could at least have a little bit of difference in the missions that people got. CoV suffers a lot in this spot part. Especially level 1-5.
However, I am sure the Devs will continue to put a great deal of work into the game and evolve the CoV side as they have the CoH side. I totally expect to see CoV get more villainous and CoH get more heroic.
Tell me... how many other MMO's out there give you FIVE major updates, containing new Archtypes (classes), races, content zones with hours and hours of new game play... all in the 18 monthes after launch? And expect to KEEP doing that. AND FOR FREE! Then their first add-on that costs money is not only a DOUBLING in the amount of content, but can be played Stand Alone as well? (Oh, and no one has mentioned the fact that those that have both games get an additional 4 character slots PER SERVER.)
No, CoH/V is NOT the perfect MMO. Neither is WoW. (I love WoW's UI, level-while-questing rather than quest-for-level concept, well thought out graphics, and friendlieness to the Mod'ing comunity.) But what CoH/V -is- is a step in the right direction in character customation, developer interaction with the game community, and pro-activeness about evolving the game.
I sure wish some other MMO's out there would learn from their innovations. And if you want to play people with fantastic powers in a modern setting... it rocks. But then I am a comic-book fan. So take my comments with a grain of salt.
I can't wait to see what Cryptic will turn out next. They've done the comic-book thing from both sides of the same coin. Let's hope they take their way of being character-focused and mission-focused to the next level and show us whatelse new we can do in the MMO space.
Enough rambling...