Is that why the salvage/invention system came into play? Because I seem to recall that Statesman was fairly adamant about no inventory and crafting, because he hated seeing things like that in Everquest/WoW, where people would do nothing but fish/gather herbs/make armor for hours and hours on end instead of actually playing the game.*
*Yes, I know that fishing/gathering/crafting is playing the game when it’s part of the game, but I think most devs and such consider that a “side” part of the game, and going around doing missions the “main” part.
I don’t know about that, but IIRC one of the things he opposed was the release of hard numbers for all the powers and effects; he leaves, and we get deluged with them.
Actually, the majority of the “same team” came along with CoX to NC Soft; it’s Statesman/Emmert who stayed behind.
Game doesn’t look to be dying because of that, either.
Inventions are fairly recent, but not that recent. They were already old news by the time I got heavily into the game. I imagine that’s something Emmert gave in on.
An Inventions system had been in the works for a long time, that’s why the Universities were around before they could actually be used. Somehow, I doubt Emmert ever intended Inventions to turn out the way they did.
Not only Real Numbers but Real Numbers on your enemies. One archetype can get realtime updated numbers on enemies. HP, what they’re resistant to, what’s debuffing them, how fast they can run, recharge bonuses and penalties, anything.
Jack would plotz.
We’ll see about Champions. The gameplay videos make me dubious. Looks X-Boxy. (Limited by the hardware.)
Sounds like NC NorCal is gearing up for a new paid expansion to release around the same time as Champions. This is the expansion that was being hinted at months ago that would feature a new AT that is neither Hero nor Villain, plus allow fallen Heroes and redeemed Villains.
It is intended to be a multi-platform release. (Xbox-360 and PC.)
Hnwah? Where did you hear that? Not that I disbelieve you necessarily, but this is the first I’ve heard anything of the sort.
Here, first five paragraphs after the asterisks.
Thanks. I mentioned this to a friend who’s a little more in the know and she pointed me here, a post by Lighthouse affirming that it’s purely market research. It may or may not happen, but apparently the developers had no idea these ideas were even on the table. Right now this looks like speculation and testing ideas.
It does sound cool, though. I wouldn’t mind if it came to pass.
Yeah, I saw that. Lighthouse is referring to the survey results as a whole. A new paid expansion featuring a more-or-less neutral faction was first mentioned, oh, around I7 I think but definitely something Emmert himself wanted; it must be getting closer to fruition.
The City costume creator is the gold standard. No other MMO (or, in fact, any other type of game I’ve played) offers anything approaching it in customization options. In addition to the vast array of choices you have for clothing, armor, faces, hairstyles, and so forth, you have access to sliders that let you tweak the shape of your chosen face–you can modify the size and shape of the head overall, the chin, cheekbones, brows, nose, and jaw to make a unique face. There are also sliders to tweak body proportions and leg length. They’ve also added the ability to choose an appearance for your weapon, for those powersets that use them, so your assault rifle guy (for example) can have anything from a brass musket to the classic Frankengun (with its grenade launcher and flamethrower attachments). Best of all, you don’t have to sacrifice looks to use or equip anything you find–your appearance isn’t affected by the stuff you have.
You can also personalize your character by writing their backstory (or pretty much anything else you want to say about them) in their bio field, which is readable by other players. I tend to write very comic-book-like origin story recaps.
I’ve tried WoW, LotRO, Tabula Rasa, and Guild Wars, and City’s chat system beats them all hands down. It’s extremely easy to use, flexible, and readable. They also recently added the ability to include links to powers and items, so that you can show people information on things very easily.
Something none of the others have mentioned, I think, is maps. The maps in every other MMO I’ve tried have been an exercise in frustration. They’re vague and uninformative at best. The City maps have much more detail, and allow you to set handy waypoints on spots you want to visit–either defined locations, like zone gates, contacts, or mission entrances, or a spot you define on the map. The waypoints provide clear indicators of direction and distance even with the map closed, so it’s easy to find things. No wandering around aimlessly, trying to find that schmuck who hired you in a city full of guys that look just like him. You just pick him on the map or in your contact bar and fly/jump/run/'port right to him. There’s also an unofficial map patch from www.vidiotmaps.com, which adds even more info to the maps.
The gameplay can be somewhat repetitive, like all MMOs. However, a lot of the meaningless repetition is cut out. No “bring me 10 salamander tongues”…only to discover that only every 10th salamander seems to have a tongue. If a contact asks you to rough up some bad guys, he’ll tell you how many. Even hunt missions like that have been on the decline; they’re much less common in newer content. It helps to read the mission text, too–the “hunt” missions often have a purpose like serving as a diversion for an undercover cop, or scaring information out of the villains Batman-style.
The Archetypes are exceptionally flexible–much more so, in my opinion, than the classes in other MMOs I’ve tried. Each Archetype has a basic role to fill, but there are lots of different way to approach that role within the AT, and each AT has a secondary role that it’s effective in. Someone coming from another game and looking at the description of Defenders would likely think “Priest” or even “Healer”, but both of those labels are much too narrow. Defenders have a nine different primary powersets, each of which offers a radically different approach to protecting your allies and weakening your enemies. An Empathy Defender is about as different from a Dark Miasma Defender as a Priest is from a Warlock in other games. On top of that, they get to choose from eight blast sets that allow them to act as backup ranged damage, or to play solo. That’s 72 powerset combinations in a single archetype; the tasks may be repetitive, but there are lots of different ways to approach them.
You can also combine it with Hover to get ghetto-Fly in 30-second bursts at level 6. It’s nearly as fast as base Fly.
It also plays faster than say, WoW…its more like Diablo II in how fast you move through stuff. Some ATs are going to move through stuff really fast - especially at higher levels (Brainiac4 and I currently have a fire/rad controller and a fire/devices blaster - the move pretty fast through almost everything). Some move a little more slowly (I have an Empathy/Energy defender - i.e. healer - that even at 50 moves slow - she just isn’t built to do damage - she’s built to follow a guy around who does a ton of damage and make him better. But the two of them do move fast together).
I like it in part because we can put the kids to bed, play for an hour, manage to complete a mission or three, and go to bed ourselves. When we were playing WoW it would take 40 minutes to GET to the quest, then go find 20 salamander tongues - and only 10% of the damn things have tongues! And salamanders turn out not to spawn very often. So an hour and half after the kids are in bed we are still saying “just two more and we’ll go to bed!”
The combat system is also tailored to make you feel heroic. The baseline is that, regardless of what foes you’re facing or what powers you have, you should be able to survive an encounter with three minions of your own level. (There’s categories of foes: Minions, Lieutenants, Bosses, Elite Bosses, and Arch-Villains. Each category is tougher than the last, even if they’re all the same level.) Some powersets will mow through three minions like paper, while others may come close to dying, but it’s doable. The damage-centric ATs eventually get to where they can jump into the middle of a swarm of enemies unaided and tear them apart, which is just a blast. And if you’ve got a buffer/debuffer on your team, you’re unstoppable…
…which is, actually, one criticism of the game. Sometimes it’s too easy. There’s times where it’s hard as hell, but quite often if you have a team even half awake, you can turn the instanced missions to the highest difficulty setting and still never be in fear of dying. Not that dying is particularly painful in the game, either.
I downloaded the trial and played around a bit last night. It seems interesting but I’m not sure I’ll be able to really get into it. I’ll try some more over my 2 weeks and see.
The ratio is allegedly intended to be 3 even-level minions per PC at low levels, ramping up to 3 +3 minions at high levels, but it’s more of a guideline than a rule. Even relatively weak solo characters can take on tough opponents with sufficient preparation and good tactics. My Trick Arrow/Archery defender (widely considered to be one of the weakest solo builds) takes on elite bosses fairly routinely, but gets chased away by groups of minions pretty often, too.
Also, there’s another class of enemy: underling. Rikti monkeys, the miniature copies that rock-type Devouring Earth spawn, Swarms, Red Cap Wisps, and Cabal Sprites are all underling class, I believe. Individually, they’re no threat at all, but in hordes they can be a problem (especially once the monkey gas starts building up). Ask Culex/Toaster about the BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES! 
What really got me into the game was flying. It is just so cool. Especially flying low to the ground and weaving in and out of pedestrians and over and under bridges or skimming just a few feet above the water flying around in Independence Port.
Especially once I hit 20 and could get a cape and watching it moving around as I fly.
With the trial you can level up to 14 so if you take hover, which even though it is really slow it is very handy, at level 6 then at 14 you can take flying. So I would recommend giving that a try.
Not to ignorethe rest of your post, but this took me by surprise. I was under the impression that it was the most offensive Defender build there was, especially since Trick Arrow is entirely about debuffing the enemy. My TA Defender is slow at soloing, sure, but definitely better than my Empathy/Psychic Def.
It was hilarious the time I teamed up with a Martial Arts Scrapper around levels 12-13 and wound up outdamaging him (using my TA/A Def). In his defense, the kid must have been a real newbie, but I had to slow down to give him a chance to get some hits in.
Of course, I have a real fondness for Trick Arrow and Devices, and just about any powerset that lets you stealth. I’m normally one for melee, but stealth is entertaining as hell in CoH, and things like Flash Arrow, Cloaking Device, and Smoke Grenade are my bread and butter.
I got hover last night. Flying is something I really want to try.
Also the Pet class (e.g.: the shield generators used by Sky Raiders); Pets don’t give XP.