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To me the game gave me the options I wanted. I played a toon called Major Flameman. I played him in such a way I could ether lead a mission or follow a better commander. This was the first toon I created with the game and I think the best one I played. The game was simple to learn and you could have hours of enjoyment in ether solo play or as a team player. I was one who loved going after the hard badges. I always went for the "master of " badges. I wanted to be one of the first to get every master tf badge that they introduced into the game. The one thing I did not like about CoH was after a couple of months of game play they made the TF easier thous allowing players with less ambition to get the badges. A "Master of " badge should always be hard to get or it means nothing.
CoH Player who is looking forward to moving to a new city...
I support this project because I have hope...
- Feeling like a hero: Taking on multiple bad guys simultaneously made me feel like a bad-ass. I still remember wading into a sea of purple 5th column with my SS/Inv Tanker and watching my health slowly tick down as the rest of the team turned the tide. It was glorious.
- Customization: Costumes and powersets. I loved the freedom of expression. Seeing everyone's designs always put a smile on my face :)
- Group friendly: Things like global chat handles, side-kicking and mentoring. If my friends were online, I was right by their side.
- Solo friendly: Difficulty sliders and mission design. When my friends weren't online, I could complete 95% of the game content by myself.
- Optional PVP - I am not a fan of PVP. I have no problems with PVPers having fun, just not at my expense.
- Optional loot - You could finish CoX without buying or crafting anything. I really do not like the "loot grind".
CoX was a pivotal part of my life when it lived. I had met so many friends in the community, created so many characters, worked through countless max-level toons, and watched as silly goofy ideas grew and evolved into genuine pillars in my stable. Summer Heat the hero, Winter Frost the villain... So few games provide anything that could remotely come close to recreating them. Worse yet, no mmo - save a stint on STO - inspired me to develop backstory the way CoX had.
Something I enjoyed almost as much as the game was the character builders written by third party players to build and spec in such a way to develop a toon concept at max level, with a wishlist of invention enhancement franken-sets, then ingame with the always growing costume creator at Icon, CO did some things better, but overall it still left me feeling limited to something that wasn't substantial.
I'm playing WoW right now with my boyfriend, and even though we have found a nice happy niche for us on a gay-friendly (as gay friendly as it can get) server, it has absolutely nothing on the community support my friends and I had building vast supergroups for gay players to the developer and studio support to encourage that mutual respect of the LGBT community.
Other things I miss include the veteran rewards, the sidekick/exemplar system, simplistic looting, the design around powers not gear that make or break a toon, the vigilante system that let us choose how heroic or villainous a character was, the quick play of patrol and newspaper missions, the architect, bases...just about everything that helped create a world that encapsulated all the necessary pieces to truly grow the community the way it did.
[i]“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams[/i]
I keep coming back to this post to read everyone's thoughts on CoX. There's some amazing stories here. I just personally want to thank everyone for sharing.
I was brought in early by my local desktop RPG group. We're all comic book fans, and we'd already played Mutants & Masterminds for almost a year when CoH first came out. I was in around mid-July, and all of our gaming group was online by the end of that first year.
Our GM came up with Kid Courage and formed The Justice Brigade (on Justice of course). JB eventually maxed out with 75 heroes before that limitation was expanded, and it was that extended family that made CoH so important to me.
All these years later, I'm still in contact with the friends I made in the Justice Brigade. I hope to see some of them again when CoT launches.
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The ability to communicate, to find a person gameplay with a flexible and streamlined interface, simple and fun buttons also does not cross the other characters or NPCs, animations and role shields melee lines, the opportunity to see all these statistics défence / attack / camouflage / resistance / ect ....
And so many other things ....
I forgot this fabulous mentor system!
francophone community
At the last Player Summit in 2012, Positron and the other Devs asked at one of the panels, what in City of Heroes feels "Epic" to you? Other people talked about doing thing that had incredibly huge goals and scope. Gigantic mass battles. Fighting GODS. Saving the Planet. Those kinds of things.
Then I stepped up to the mic and told them that something in City of Heroes that had always felt "Epic" to me was actually some of the smaller touches that were in the game ... things like hearing random Civilians on the street [i]talking about your character's latest exploits[/i] in whatever instance or mission you'd just completed recently. Positron and the other Rednames on the panel seemed momentarily speechless (at least to me) that something so simple ... [i]and small![/i] ... could actually FEEL EPIC ... and then I told that it was because what we DID as players was actually having a VISIBLE EFFECT on the game world. Sure, it was a "temporary" effect, that in the grand scheme of things was pretty darn meaningless ... but still! It was something that you could SEE, and feel like what you had been doing had a ... meaning ... beyond just your XP count and your inventory of loot.
If memory serves, Positron offered up (later on) that the "random civvie on the street" gossiping about the Player's character, and what they'd been doing was something that had been implemented VERY early on in game development, and they'd always wondered if anyone would really notice it (or care), and in all the years since then they'd kinda "forgotten" about it, even though they had continued to expand the system with new missions and content so that the behavior wouldn't just "stop" at some point because they'd quit maintaining that particular system. It might have even been something that War Witch pushed for specifically (I forget now). But just looking at the way that everyone in the room responded affirmatively when I made the point that even LITTLE THINGS done in the game can FEEL EPIC ... I get the feeling that there was a goodly bit of recalibrating of expectations as to what "Epic" [b]could mean[/b] to their Players, in that it didn't always require going Over The Top of whatever they'd done before (with the attendant power creep issues).
Actually ... punt this idea of pulling this from memory.
Player Summit 2012 Endgame Panel, [i]What makes you feel epic?[/i] [url=www.youtube.com/watch?v=706XbI96Dxw&t=1477]LINK[/url]
Redlynne's Player blathers for a [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=706XbI96Dxw&t=2816]a couple minutes[/url] about what feels Epic, and in response, Protean gives credit to Pitt Viper for writing an Epic Morality Mission for Villains ... [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Mission:Tip_-_My_Other_Selves]My Other Selves[/url].
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
My main was an Empath Defender.
I made a character with Kinetics, and later, a character with bubbles, for EXACTLY this reason.
Nothing gave me quite as much pleasure as, like you said, being able to "Pay it Forward" from the kindnesses visited on me when I was a young little newbie, lost in the city.
As others have mentioned: Community kept me with CoH for six years. For a while, I tried CO-- but it felt cold. I didn't have the heart to invest my time in become part of another community that I had no knowledge of!
It was also the customization. Altoholics unite! I had probably thirty characters, all of which I dabbled with from time to time-- because ANYTHING that came into my mind, I could make. From their appearance to the powers they used. Anything.
*Brevity of Grace* - 50 Emp/Archery Defender
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/grace-just-grace]Backstory - Just Grace[/url]
*Hematitan* - 50 Grav/FF Controller
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/allison-morris-hematitan]Backstory - Hematitan[/url]
Ditto to all of this.
I had an Ill/Emp controller that I frequently offered what help I could to people in need.
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My Mind Control/Kinetics Controller, Ms Givings, would often engage in Drive-by Buffing, and could often do things like Mass Hypnosis to Sleep an entire spawn group (so no XP stealing) and Speed Boost and use Transfusion and Transference to both Heal and Endurance Recover some hero on the street who looked like they might have been having a hard time and had bitten off more than they could chew. Likewise, sometimes my Ice/Ice Tanker, Shirayukihime, would sometimes help out lowbie Blasters and Defenders by turning on all of her defensive toggles and Chilling Embrace (but not Icicles) and just draw all the aggro onto herself and play aggro magnet while standing in place ... giving the lowbie a chance to recover and pick the mobs off at leisure, while still getting full credit for defeating them all (because I wasn't doing any damage to them).
It was that Random Acts Of Kindness aspect of Virtue that made it such a wonderful home to live in.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It was a combination of things. While the superhero concepts felt limited to me in terms of power choices, I loved the look of the characters, which for me, is the number one most important aspect of an MMO! If I can't get into the art style of the characters, the game is already dead to me. This isn't to say I need all my games to look like CoH :p I do appreciate different styles (just not all).
Gameplay. Loved it. I loved planning my builds, enhancing the builds, and chasing after the enhancements I needed to, to get the build I wanted.
Enemies! Everywhere! Made for a much more superhero feeling. I wouldn't mind CO's 5 enemy spawn, if they weren't so spread out! :/
Superheroes! CoH wasn't my first MMO (FFXI gets that title), I did however pick it up at the store with just by looking at the box and going "Oooooo...superheroes!"
Community was generally great to be in as well.
Initially it was the genre unlike anything else out there, and the character and costume creation that allowed for mind blowing levels of self expression resulting in fantastic looking toons with awesome powers. As time went on, I found the community and the evolution of the game struck such a chord in me. I could enjoyably play in group or duos for hours, or depending on real life commitments I could solo missions or patrol around for short periods of time with both being equally immersive and satisfying. I grew to feel like a true veteran and an old-timer with a virtual home and a virtual extended family - we had traditions and holidays and had survived some extraordinary (and sometimes seemingly legendary) encounters. I enjoyed writing my own content for others.
When it all went away it felt like an amputation of a part of me that mattered. Starting other games were no real replacement for what had been created, built upon and nurtured over nearly a decade. I still miss the characters I had made and leveled, the world and the enemy groups, the holiday events and giant monsters, the friends and Super groups I was a part of.
Former Air Force guy working in the global Satellite Communications industry. Long time City of Heroes guy. Was my first MMO. Very optimistic for this project.
I don't really think I can add anything to this immense list. Frankly, what's been said already really nailed it on the head for me. The teaming, the Super Groups, the bases and base builder, the STORY ontop of STORY ontop of Story's.. the immersion.. and the ability to REALLY go outside the box with how you built your toon. I remember when Issue 4 hit with "Enhancement Diversification" and I was like "so? All of my toons are already diversified!". Mind you, that was the age when anything ranged was cookie cuttered into 2 accuracy and 4 damage.. nevermind that I had an accuracy, a recharge, an endurance reduction, and 3 damages in my energy/electric blasters sets and was OWNING NPC's at range and putting down more DPS than anyone in my teams. Nevermind that I built and leveled up a Dark/Dark/Dark Scrapper to level 50 when the dark sets where considered by "Everyone" to be the most gimp. Nevermind that he could debuff Recluse and tank him.. nope.. just ignore that fact :) Just ignore the fact that I had hard-capped my regen on a Willpower tank right about level 36 by using the proper process enhancements.. ignore that I had a completely maxed bank account on 3 different toons, or that I had 3 servers FULL of alts on a single account (Freedom, Justice, and Liberty).
But what you can never ignore is that I always had a good time. That I always ENJOYED playing with people, some of whom I wouldn't see and play with again for a year or so, or that I always enjoyed helping out the new guy, or showing the Veterans how to tweak numbers on their alts.. or that I fondly remembered the Hollows Taxi Service, and the Hamidon Raid Taxi's (Across all the zones in under 5 minutes!).. or that I remembered the first way to get your cape..or how much fun it was to run out all happy that you where getting your cape, only to be jumped by the Tsoo on the way out of the door of Icon! Or the first time I debuffed and solo'd Kraken with my level 16 Rad/Rad defender, much to everyone's amazement. Trying that trick on Luska however, was an epic failure and really hurt! Remembering how a single persons offhanded comment about being about to hit level 50 so fast and telling someone "Just go hunt down skulls, you'll get there quick!" prompted an argument that lead to the badge "Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls".. yes.. I was there for that..
The community however... after everything is said and done.. the community in CoH.. how we treated each other.. how we always tried to work problems out.. how groups always worked together when it was needed.. and most importantly, how things we did in a game world helped out people in real life (I know there are many who helped me when I needed it.. Alpha Strike SG on Justice, The Sisterhood SG on Liberty, and many individuals throughout).. that's what made CoX the great game it was. The rest of it, that just made for a lot of fun, and a lot of good memories :)
I'm so PseudoCool, I even gave the definition!
CoH was my first MMO and like everyone here i liked so many things about it that i just don't have the time to type it all. One thing that i do really miss is super jump. Sometimes i would just enjoy bouncing around a zone from rooftop to rooftop - Brickstown was good for that - it just had a great kinetic quality.
Daemonheart was the first character I ever invested in that wasn't created using 4d6 and a Player's Handbook. Every character I made on Virtue shared his story; Kaiya, the demon who framed him for murder and embedding in him the Daemon Heart, Daemoness, his sister who traveled to Paragon City to help prove his innocence, Seer Anya (in both hero and villain form), seeking to learn the truth about her former lover and getting captured & forced to serve as an Arachnos Widow in the process, Blitz the Mindslave, a seer put into mental bondage as Kaiya's servant.
There was just something that was wholly engrossing about weaving this labyrinthine story between my characters that hasn't really gone away -- I still have rough drafts for a similar scenario with my WoW characters.
City of Heroes also helped me during the heavy chemo rounds. While D&D was a huge part of helping me escape, City was there when I was unwilling (or unable) to go out to fill my escapism. (And this also led to one of the weirder characters I've ever made: Radiation Therapist, a Rad/Rad controller).
I also met one of my good friends through our time as DJs for a station service City of Heroes. Krelo and I have kept in touch long after our stint at w00t Radio ended, and to this day, she and I can spend a good amount of time just talking nonsense, even though we're not playing the same game.
True, I hadn't played much in the past year or so, but every time I logged in, it felt as fun as the first time I installed the game.
The first time I used Knockout Blow, I was hooked. I thought it was incredible. The animation, the sound effects and the ferocity of combat. The super strength set was mean.
And I could say that about most of the power sets I've played. Just amazing.
The character creator was almost endless. You could spend hours just making a toon.
The travel powers were smooth and fluid.
I loved the i12 PvP. and while it was not perfect, it was fast, frenzied and dangerous.
I learned so much form other players on the Triumph server and I hope to play with them again!
For me, it was a very engaging, experience where I truly felt the level of immersion you would expect. I remember going to Talos my first time and just wandering around. And like another poster mentioned, there were thugs busy doing different things..menacing people, lounging around..being bad and if you happened upon them they went after you. I tried STO, and been playing CO for about a year now but the world is SO SMALL. In CoH, so many zones and the zones themselves were large..so I could go hang out on Striga, or Independence Port.. but most of all, the Lore!
The devs always had the story moving forward, especially as they added more end-game content. It felt like a real world and my characters, whether they were controllers, defenders, blasters, tanks, etc all felt needed. I could always help out a team and doing team missions were quite frankly exhilarating. I remember doing some Freaks missions with so many freaks jamming the hallways and our team cornered and fighting back. All the while, even for a pickup team there was chatter, and camaraderie. When you do an alert in CO, its so short so nothing happens there. And even doing the few longer missions (adventure packs) the community spirit is still different. So please continue to focus on story, customization, and making that world REAL for me..with realistic looking graphics (unlike CO), little things like leaves blowing, or a sunset coming up like in CoX .. and vast areas where even other baddies were in perpetual fights like in the zone (ah, forgot the name) where the witches and others fought.
Even Cimorra was great..fighting roman soldiers..was challenging!
CoH addict for 8+ years...and counting
Geez....and how could I forget (sound like a little kid blushing on his first date..fumbling all over himself), but Mission Architect!!!! For some it wasn't the greatest but to me, it was a dream come true. Being able to create your own stories, characters, using the landscapes from the game.. absolutely mind-blowing!!! I think towards the end I started spending more time there in my own created worlds than I did doing other missions..and it was because I got so hooked on writing stories (a frustrated fiction writer here!) and THEN being able to play them out with actual characters..c'mon.. talk about innovation, on that note alone it was absolutely amazing!
And again, with CoH being my first and to that time, my only MMO for 8+ years, the community was absolutely top-notch. I met some through the game that I never saw their real face or heard their voice but we became friends nevertheless and it was wonderful. I lost a part of myself that day in November last year when they shut us down, contact with so many..thank goodness for the Facebook groups.. my girlfriend didn't understand at the time why there was so much passion and even called me still crazy for being a KS backer for CoT, but nothing even begins to compare the experience, the warmth, the expansiveness, the ongoing plot development...ok..I could string along adjectives for years, but you get the picture..CoH was tops!! And I'm looking forward to CoT to expand upon even that lofty goal!
CoH addict for 8+ years...and counting
As someone who enjoyed other people's MA's ... and was not displeased by his own attempt, I'm glad to hear that user-created content is one of the basic goals of MWM.
If anyone's seen Neverwinter's Foundry system, that's what I'm picturing when I read/listen to the devs talk about this. The Foundry quests are pretty amazing, and they interact with NPC's and doors in the public area ... only shunting you to an instance once you go through that door. and the variety available to users is amazing.
I played one Foundry mission that was in black-and-white because it was supposed to take place at the edge of the realm of the dead. Another mission used a whole zone and stuck a giant floating ship in the middle that you had to get up to and destroy it. SO cool.
Can't wait to see what MWM comes up with ^_^
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For me it was the amazing flexibility in the costume creator. I must have created over 150 different characters with various costume sets, power sets or just crazy concepts I came up with. Every single character had a back story and motivation. I also loved doing the task forces and when the incarnate abilities came along I was in heaven. Doing those incarnate trials with my fellow teammates and new found friends was a blast. As a backer of the Phoenix Project, I am very much looking forward to what they have to offer upon launch. I put my money where my mouth is....now the hard part is the wait. [tapping foot emote]
"I am a dancer, a leaf in the wind...a leaf that can kick your butt!"
@Sealth Dart:
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So many good comments. The community. The flexibility.
Something that I really liked (in addition to many other things that have been mentioned) was that there were so many activities available. Kicking butt was always available, but sometimes I would just log on to 'tinker'. Tinkering and tweaking my characters builds was very engrossing. A couple of people mentioned Mid's, and like them, I have spent hours sometimes tweaking a build. Then after that, working in game to develop the build, evaluating whether it was as good -or fun- as it looked 'on paper'. I sometimes spent hours at the auction house, trying to get rich. Or crafting Inventions. Here's one: designing my Supergroup base. One time I spent two weeks just logging on to cosmetically overhaul the base, and I even rolled a toon with certain powers just for that. These features may not have appealed to all players all the time, but they were there if you were interested in something different to do. Howabout badge hunting? I wasn't as much into it, but I met tons of players that took that seriously. Something I did really like though was earning badges for Accolades. More Power! And another thing I wasn't so much into was the social-zone, Pocket D. Tons of players always in there though. So many different things available to do, even if I wasn't 'into to it' at the moment, I knew it was available.
Heres a feature I think all games should have that I have ONLY EVER SEEN in CoH: the 'ding' or chime sound made when someone typed something in team or league chat. That sound would alert me to glance at the team chat window, and I usually wouldn't miss any of the chatter, important or otherwise. Such a simple feature, but valuable! No other MMO that I have tried since has this, and I'm all like, what's up with that! ...The display resolution I use usually leaves text kind of small on the screen, and I don't notice when my teammates are yelling, or begging me to do something, or asking me a question... such a simple feature should just be IN ALL GAMES. Bravo to CoH for having that.
Another poster mentioned how CoH was waaaaayy larger and waaayyyyy better than it was when it first came out. I don't think CoT can have all those game aspects when it first comes out, BUT
I think that what we are all hoping for is that CoT can give us that great core game that gives the same good ole feeling we got from playing CoH. I think it will.
Now that Stealth and Ebon mentioned it, I wish they had this emote:
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
LOL
[b][i]... examines graphics again ...[/i][/b]
Same girl?
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It's Kuroko of the Railgun series, banging her head on the table when her Onee-sama is being all naive and moe and CUTE and dumb to dupe a bunch of guys into taking her somewhere.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Well, Teana and Kuroko are both twin-tailed redhead badasses with best friends who will be the end of them, now that you mention it...
But yeah, Kuroko's friend, Misaka, normally a tough girl with little to no interest in boys, is five booths down in the restaurant acting like she wants to be picked up by some guys who know about a deal that's going down nearby. Misaka's acting completely contrary to her personality, and Kuroko's trying to get the image of this travesty out of her mind. And thus we get a great emote for "No, no, a thousand times no! Make it stop!"
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
*grins* Thank you for the extremely detailed explanation ladies ^_^
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I liked the way my character felt like my creation. So much customization, rather than Warriors look like this, Healers look like this and are limited to that.
The visuals and sounds. I loved that my attacks had "weight" to them and it actually felt like I was hitting something, rather than whiffing and health going down.
In depth lore. I loved the mythological symbolism and it felt like I was getting into a good book and eager to find out what happens next. Speaking of books, novels that go along with CoT would be awesome.
Travel powers and Superheroes. Nuff said.
@HeroStar
Yep, Travel powers are awesome!
I loved TP, though it took me some time to learn to use it correctly.
Agreed ... was my second-favorite travel power (fly being first of course)
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"Immersion... to whatever extent I wanted at the moment.
Camaraderie... even with complete strangers I would never again meet.
Self paced... there are scripted mishes or just patrolling or TF's or a slow roll through Hollows, or farming, or seasonal events, or rp, or whatever. If I am feeling it I can participate in it!
Customization... my toon was my toon. I rarely saw the exact same build and nearly never the same appearance.
I could be as good or bad as I liked and it was fun either way. When I teamed with friends it was so cool to figure out how to defeat even regular runs with new power sets.
I must've done the FF run in the Hollows like a million times... I just never got tired of that run. Should have but just never did...
I'm gonna get flamed for this but here goes. ~ Personally I kinda liked that there were areas that I couldn't traverse easily. Yeah I would have liked flight at level 1 but some of my favorite memories were of being a low level newbie getting my arse kicked in the hollows just because I couldn't get to the far end without going through at least a couple hordes of trolls, etc. Some things really should be tough at least at first, I appreciated flight so much more knowing how hard it was for my character to survive even just getting to a mish without it. I enjoyed that form of immersion. Maybe I am a sadist???" - Rookslide
Wow. I couldn't have said it better myself - on all points.
I would play CoH for hours on end - sometimes - on weekends. But week nights, due to work, etc., I could only manage 45 minutes or maybe 2-3 hours if I was lucky. I liked that I could log on and do something fun but easy (low-level content via Ouro or make a new toon and take him / her into the Hollows and die a few times but have fun the whole time LOL Or, jump on for a quick tf maybe a Posi 1 or Posi 2 or an ITF.
Your comment on camaraderie was spot on. Yes, I occasionally ran into a few jerks. But it really was not common. And when I compare that experience to WoW or other games, then I was always thankful for CoH. Because I was many times not aware of new content / updates until these were upon us, I often relied on the kind folks of Justice server to learn about what was "new" and how to do x, y or z now. The broadcast channel was useful, but other channels like Justice United were simply *the best* when it came to learning about new aspects of the game. And many times, folks would answer my questions quickly and without patronizing me. This made me feel like a real member of a virtual society. Always respected. And, I would "pay it forward" by helping out a new person with advice, tips or run a mish or two with them to help them out.
And, I too enjoyed the challenge of the Hollows before travel powers were available much sooner. Don't get me wrong - many times I was cursing the mobs of trolls and others that would kill me - sometimes mere feet from the door to the mish I was trying to get to. I would hit the hospital, buy a few insps from a contact, and then return again. It was a challenge. It was frustrating. But it was fun. And as rookslide stated, once I DID earn a flight power and could bypass those mobs that had killed me previously, then I truly felt like I had accomplished something.
Anyway, I am just restating what has already been said. But, well put, Rookslide :)
This was one of my first MMO's, and I have always been a super hero fan, and when I heard that CoH was coming out, I was super excited. When I first opened the character creator, I was overwhelmed, there were so many options, I could be whatever I wanted to be! Did I wan't to be a controller, scrapper, defender, tanker, blaster, this power or that. Well I chose scrapper because I wanted to deal some major damage! When I got out into the world, I didn't think I would have any trouble kickin butt since I was a super hero! But wait, I have to work up my way to becoming a butt whoopin avenger. I worked my way up to level 14, and then the option of flight came along, and I had the time of my life. I could fly around for hours just for fun! That was the start of the journey, and the rest was just as much fun, I loved every character I made and each one had a different story and flavor to them. No character was the same(unless I wanted it to be xD).
So in short, the thing I loved about CoX was everyting. From just running around through sewers to hanging out with friends, and the story :)
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
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it was fluid mooth running game.i actually loved the farming.it was way more fun then most games with the farming.id put my headphones in put on some mettalica and do runs all night. nothing like running electric stone armour tp mobs then jump up and bam mobs dead ss to the next 1.mass confusing whole mobs then burn em all.i hope they are able to pull off some of those same elements.most games frming is monotonous
bam bam the mighty ,stoned thug 187 cov freedom
it was fluid mooth running game.i actually loved the farming.it was way more fun then most games with the farming.id put my headphones in put on some mettalica and do runs all night. nothing like running electric stone armour tp mobs then jump up and bam mobs dead ss to the next 1.mass confusing whole mobs then burn em all.i hope they are able to pull off some of those same elements.most games frming is monotonous
bam bam the mighty ,stoned thug 187 cov freedom
I could echo many of the responses here. What made CoH special to me was several things: First, it was NOT Fantasy, if I see another elf I'll scream. Second, CoH felt like you were accomplishing something as you completed quick missions, you could play for 15 minutes or 6 hours per your choice. Last, through the Hero Corps advisors the PLAYER could tell the game how they wanted to PLAY. Unlike most people here though I did NOT stay to the bitter end because I wanted an AT that had ranged attacks AND good defenses. I would have even settled for a short ranged capability so as not to rain on blasters. It looks like CoT (still think Circle of Thorns LOL) will give me the Ranged Tank *cough* CoH was unable to do.
CoH player Guardian server
I did reply to this thread earlier but someone mentioned the other day something I would like to add to my list. That being the small touches. "Did you hear about White Samurai defeating X or Y in Z place?" I actually stopped to listen to what the random passers by had to say.
I also loved the rag-doll effect of enemies. Knocking them about actually looked 'proper'. You propelled them off something, they actually fell off, they didn't lay there on their back or side, with 90% of their body in open air like Wile-E-Coyote before remembering that Physics exist and affect him too; they dropped off, rolled down hills and stairs and it looked great!
We all have it in us to be a hero to someone,
Super powers are optional.....
Part of the Phoenix Rising Initiative.....
Proud to be a hero. Prouder still to be a member of [url=http://www.watchfire-online.info]Watchfire[/url]
Ah, but there were a few veteran powers in CoH that did allow melee fighters to gain ranged attacks. They may not have caused massive damage, but they did get the target's attention, and that's all a good melee fighter needed in the game.
And then there was the mission that granted the temporary use of the Nemesis Staff... First time I ran that mission, my long-term companion Von Scythe clicked the glowie and got it, and was very happy that his Katana / Super Reflexes Scrapper finally had a way to fight at range. We called it "Von's Magic Lollipop" from that day on.
I always referred to the Nemesis Staff as the "Key To The City" ... as you can clearly see [url=http://herodawn.fotopages.com/?entry=317966&back=http://herodawn.fotopages.com/?page=6]HERE[/url] ... in screencaps dating all the way back to 12 January 2005(!) back before the invention of Pants and Sneakers.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
For me personally it was being able create. Period. Looks, abilities, try combinations of different abilities and see what they can do. Loved the looks of the game. I felt a part of that world.
Then it got even better for me.
My wife tried it...........:) And one heck of a scrapper was born!..........LOL!
She did it all on her own, and man did she do it right.
CoH was a HUGE great thing for our marriage. We played together a lot and had some times we still talk about to this day. Like the time our SG were doing Maurader and it was a team wipe except for her MA/Regen scrapper. We all watched from the floor as she systematically took him down alone. Her excitement.....well, I will NEVER forget that.....ever. In fact my wife is the one who met the supergroup in game that became our SG.
Since CoH went away, we tried other games. My wife couldn't play them. She is disabled with a closed head injury and the pace of CoH was perfect for her. She can't do the twitch games.
So we are both extremely hopefull that the "pace" of CoT will be one she can do.
Sorry for going off there........shutting up now...........:)
And it was the things that people don't pay much attention to that contributed to that degree of cameraderie. Missions that scaled to the number of participants, and then awarded bonus XP for teaming, instead of other MMOs where the open-world missions have fixed 'defeat count' goals and the instanced missions have static mob counts, so that even when teaming gives you more XP, the same mob defeat XP total gets [i]divided[/i] among the team members. The individual loot drops, where it didn't matter how many people were on the team; each one got their own drops without regard to the drops any of their teammates might get, instead of each mob dropping loot that gets contested over who gets [i]this[/i] drop with all the "bind on pickup" nonsense that makes it critically important to [b]stop[/b] the flow of play while loot is parceled out to make sure the right team members get the right loot, with the "need/greed/disassemble" mechanic letting people be jerks and ninja loot out from under the people who can use it. The super sidekicking mechanic, that meant that characters forty levels apart could team up and do [b]either[/b] characters' missions, and both would have a challenge and both would receive level-appropriate rewards, instead of high-level characters teaming with low-level characters to steamroller low-level content, at the cost of not getting any XP, the reverse just setting the low-level character up to be defeated any time one of the high-level characters looks at them funny, and [i]still[/i] get no XP.
There are so many aspects of play in 'conventional' MMOs that, intentionally or not, created divisions that made it more efficient for characters to solo the content that didn't [b]force[/b] them to team for -- aspects that CoH threw out the window, the devs recognizing that if [i]everyone[i] in a group benefits from teaming, the fact that interacting with other players as part of a team makes the experience richer brings people together just [i]for[/i] that benefit. For so many other MMOs, your teammates are [i]competitors[/i] -- you defeat the same number of mobs and get the same items of loot that you would solo, but now you're having to divide it all up among the team members; CoH made teammates [i]collaborators[/i]; everyone got [i]more[/i] because they were on a team.
Indeed. Although I wished it payed attention to what drops go to what people so that the reward worth was spreaded a bit more evenly. Overall the COX was no better than need or greed. The difference instead of people trying to get it themselves. the RNG seem to favor a couple on the team and they get the multiple purple drops, the good gear drops the rare costume drops and they lvoe the system because they get rewarded greatly for it and they forget about the rest of the team that end up being the drop trash can and end up with the crappy drops that not even worth trying to sell.
I think the drop should have been more round robin. One person get a purple very rare drop, then they dont get another until everyone else at least get one. That way one or two people are not rewarded greatly automatically while the rest of get nothing useful when all the team mates do the same amount of work while a couple walk away with hundreds of millions worth of items and others may be lucky if thye manage to break a couple of thousand. Which in the end is no better than the need/greed system the only difference the computer picks who gets the greed drops and the rest end up with the worthless leftovers.
What I dislike about so many other games is that buffs and debuffs are attached to gear and outfits. So to get better, you're constantly changing your look with miss-matched junk. I loved in CoX that how you looked had nothing to do with your powers or how you slotted them. I like my toons to look good, not like they belong to The People of Walmart's page.
Life is to short not to laugh.
For what its worth, I found the dev in-jokes just the best. They were the kind of things that you'd do with your friends when you were hanging out. Like the Oscillation Overthruster pulled directly from Buckaroo Banzai. I bet that the devs actually made a game that they wanted to play and continued to improve it. I played from launch to 11/29. I was grateful to be out of town on the last day because it was so intense and awful anyway. The big melee in AP1 that Hitstreak called us to seemed to be the best way to leave ie going down fighting. I confess to feeling bereft when the reality of the closing hit, like someone had closed Disneyworld without telling us or giving anyone any choice.
I must say, having played a number of MMOs since, that none come close. Maybe because the genre was new to all of us, but mostly because we all were in it together. The community made the game worth being part of. I lost my wife 5 yrs ago and COH was the one place(I kid you not) that I could go to, interact with others and receive condolences without having to take care of the people expressing them. Which was a huge relief.
Others have commented on the specifics of game play and they're all true observations. One of my "fondest" memories was running desperately around Steel Canyon trying to get to the mish and not die. I think Debt or some consequence for dying is an important part of the game. Not true death, but a requirement to be careful.
And then, of course, there's flying.....really looking forward to doing that again. No other game comes close to the feeling of space that COH had.
Along with the corresponding lack of individuality that results from that, simply because of the inescapable fact that, while all you need is a tiny little routine to say 'create chest armor pieces across [b]this[/b] level range and [b]this[/b] range of quality, with level appropriate armor values and using [b]this[/b] function to generate stat balances' and get a dozen, a hundred, or five hundred distinct armor items, there's no way that the [b]art department[/b] is going to be able to create unique models for each of those items. And as a result, you wind up with the same model being used over and over and over again for different items, with at [i]best[/i] a color tweak to increase the variability. So you can have three characters, one in level-10 gear, one in level-20 gear, and one in level-30 gear, and they all look like they're wearing the same gear, because the three tiers of gear share the same models.
And I've noticed that SWTOR further jerks you around by making the appearance of some gear faction-dependent, so that if you take, say, a chest armor piece that is white with blue accents when worn by a Trooper, when worn by a Bounty Hunter it's got a completely different model and is battered grey and green-grey. Having a game artificially force your choice of appearance like this is annoying.
Not being able to use the Jedi Adept Armor (pretty sure I have this name wrong) was one of the reasons I stopped playing TOR after I finished getting all storylines to 50. In fact, I was all set to continue playing on just one character for each fraction (since they weren't going to do individual storylines for classes anymore) but RNG Packs for Dye, not getting the armor I wanted for my Consular...was terrible. Not to mention, they screwed up with tying classes to specific weapons.
Seriously, let any Force User use any lighter saber style they want! Let the Agent use a Blaster Pistol (which was made worse by them using a Pistol in some of the cinematics).
A number of things made me stick with CoH...
At first I played it for awhile, before NCSoft took over. I liked it, but not enough to stick with it.
A few years later I gave it another try. It was around i16. By then everything had improved so, so much. I wound up in a tight knit Super Group and never looked back. For years I ran with them, doing Task Forces, parties, events...
Then I took an impromptu break for a couple of months from the game and when I came back... I came back to the message of the game's closing.
Since then I've played both DCUO and CO. CO has also improved over the years, and I enjoy it although it's still not as good as CoH, IMHO. DCUO...
Oh god.
DCUO has a very poor character creator. Originally each gender had three body types to choose from... Now it's nine. No setting the height, muscle mass or anything yourself. You can't make a tall beanpole or a short muscle heavy guy. I can't make some of my old toons due to the lack or horns and tails. And after, what, three years of operation they still don't have a Physical/Might set which ticks me off to no end.
My main in CoH was an Invulnerability/Super Strength Tanker. I specced her to the nines. I got the PvP +Def and +Res IOs for her. She was the one with the best Incarnate powers. I could walk into some 8-man task force rooms and aggro everything in sight and beat them down alone. Sure, I wouldn't do it very quickly, but I'd do it.
Then there was my Shield Defense/Super Strength Tanker... A Titan Weapon/Fire Armor Brute. A Martial Art/Willpower Scrapper in a playboy bunny suit who could jump around. An Archery/Trick Arrow Corrupter with Stealth and a Stealth IO...
But the biggest thing CoT needs to do is make a community. The CoH forum goers and players are some of the nicest that were ever assembled for one game. A lot of ideas that could be tossed around were taken seriously and had people add their own ideas on how it could work.
Over at the DCUO forums people demand a Physical/Might powerset and have others say 'just use Brawling' or 'Use Earth and mimic it" or 'Use the Iconics tree.'
Meanwhile if I made a post saying 'Hey, guys? Know what would be cool? Radiation Control!' a lot of people would go 'hey, that's a neat idea!' Not that many would dismiss it out of hand.
I miss CoH.
I miss the CoH community even more.
Of the things that City of Heroes did right, this, the elimination of required roles in teams, and scaling missions to the team size are the three things that made it a "play with whichever of my friends are on, whatever characters they're playing" game. You didn't have to have everyone in a narrow level range to be able to contribute to the mission, you didn't have to have specific archetypes in the team, and the missions didn't become cakewalks as you added more people to the team (defeating three minions and a lieutenant solo may make you plan your fight; defeating three minions and a lieutenant with a six-man team is boring).
That's also true.
Also it leveled people up or down to match the mission. Weaker characters could still offer damage and support, and more powerful ones weren't so powerful that they made everyone else redundant.
And when you hit the end game your character was a hero worthy of standing next to the game's premier heroes. And if you had a heavy IO investment, you could over shadow them.
Hell, with the Incarnate powers the devs were making it so you'd be more powerful then the Freedom Phalanx.
That's another thing I miss; having a demi-god like character; but things around to challenge that demi-god character.
Difficult to say just one thing made City of Heroes special, it was a combination of things. The relative ease to get started and the complexities that were available if you wanted to get into them but weren't required to succeed, the fact you could tweak the difficulty level, the fact you could look as unique as you wanted without effecting your abilities, characters being unique even if they're the same archetype, the scale of the world which was just right without feeling overwhelming, the well written stories (though some of the original/pre-CoV content was a bit duff) and the fact it leaded itself to being social. Many other MMOs are almost set up to inspire rivalries and conflict, even in something as simple as dice rolls for loot, not to mention the fact anyone could steal and objective while your back's turned. The sheer wealth of emotes in conjunction with the costume creator made it an role player's paradise as well. It's insane so many of the brilliant features CoH pioneered haven't made their way into mainstream MMOs.
That was all part of the final version of the sidekick/exemplar code toward the sunset of the game, automatically scaling people up or down in relation to the holder of the mission.
It [i]did[/i] eliminate the ability to get a high-level character to come into a mission to steamroller a particularly recalcitrant end-boss mob (defeating Requiem in one of the Nemesis story arcs was a perennial problem for me; I'd have to let that one sit for a couple levels until I could go back and beat him, and I remember seeing people asking for a 50 to help them with one or another of the AV-scaled-to-EB mobs, but it was a matter of ego to be able to complete them solo on most of my characters, which got harder to overlevel as you approached 50 facing some of the Peregrine Praetorian missions, although the Incarnate boosts helped there).
True.
I remember in SWTOR doing the Essels one with a group and one of the guys was a level 30 odd Gunslinger....
It was three guys standing around looking cool while the fourth just cleaned house before we got our weapons out.
Very nicely said. All MMO devs should read your post. We do have a community full of great people, but I believe it's game mechanics like this that drew us all here and kept us.
Spurn all ye kindle.
What made CoH special to me was being able to play with my best friend of 18 years after I moved across the ocean. We have never been able to find another game to play together due to conflicting interests and some cases, tech problems
"In the end there can be only one" The Highlander
One of my nieces used to come round and just design costumes right from beta when it was restricted.. i let her design most of my costumes... she wasnt into the game itself... thought it was a boys thing.. just the way she thinks
she does fashion design as a job now just finished a design degree..and says coh was what gave her that design bug
gotta agree this is a KEY difference in CoH .. instancing that scales .. individual loot
and no bind on pickup ..thus when i got stuff appropriate to other team members.. even if i'd never see them again i'd give them Enhancements they needed .. and the super just drop damage boosters and acc boosters on the dps guys or resistance on tankers, without needing to ask or trade... kept up the groups output and often i wasn't using them as i was healing or CC-ing
I've just given items to other players in other MMOs, that's not something that was limited to CoH. That's something that is limited only by the player who got the drop.
CoH was no different. Sure, you got that drop that might be useful to someone else, so you just gave it away, plenty of others sold that type of drop for influence, whether it be to the AH or a NPC Vendor.
For me.... I think it comes down to the community. And I think there is some validity to the idea that the game itself fostered the type of community that came together.
The community was mostly a giving, sharing, cooperative group. CoH encouraged this behavior with its carefree loot system and its teaming mechanisms.
The community was also very communicative. The game was also very communication oriented. Its chat system was incredible. While the "global", cross game chat system that some games sport may seem pretty awesome, I still find them not nearly as flexible as CoH's was.
This is not to say that there wasn't a sense of competition in the community. The Marketeers and PvPers kept us all on our toes. But even there, it seemed to be more of a sportsmanship type of competition. Most folks were more than willing to lend a hand to anyone who expressed an interest in those areas.
CoH was such a flexible game. There was something for the casual gamer, the artistic gamer, and plenty for the more competitive. This was also reflected in the community. There were those who were family oriented, those who loved the costumes and bases, and those who ran TFs and Trials down to scientific levels.
I have yet to see the level of diversity and general acceptance of that diversity in other MMOs.
I was one of the first that Played CoH before it became known as COX back in 2003 beta. It was my first MMO, I made an Egyptian character named Atum Ra, NRG/NRG blaster, had loads of fun with him, I had about 20 or more lvl 50s by the time the game ended.
I loved the community, almost anybody would try to help you out, miss the Costume Contests under Atlas. the majority of the players was nice.
I liked how your first missions in Atlas or Galaxy was determined by your origin, you didnt haft to do the same missions with every character you made starting out.
The Character generator was just awesome, there were times I would spend a couple of hours creating my character.
The animation was better than decent ( much better than CO ) , and the zones were done well.
I still cant beleave they closed it down except it was interfering with Aion.
Well, in many games, the [i]better[/i] items bind to a character specifically to prevent you from trading them. COH had a little bit of that at the end with incarnate stuff, but most of the drops, even the coveted Purple set pieces, could be given away.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
Not just trading, but also twinking. Diablo II was the poster child for twinking gear (and the first game that I can recall using the term) where the only block on being able to use something was the minimum level requirement on it. I mention this fact not just because Sailboat was playing Diablo II at the same time I was with The Amazon Basin over a decade ago, but because the next (major) Blizzard game to come out after Diablo II was essentially World of Warcraft ... and it appears that Blizzard "learned their lesson" with Diablo II and twinking. World of Warcraft introduced the concepts (to me anyway) of Bind on Equip and Bind on Pickup, which are now somewhat ubiquitous in gaming these days.
Bind on Equip was essentially a measure to combat twinking of gear, thereby ensuring that there would be a steady "churn" in the in-game economy, since it effectively created a partial "sink" that created a circumstance in which items would be destroyed, rather than remain persistent.
Bind on Pickup was the next step in that evolution, which then limited gear such that it couldn't even be traded at all.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Regarding what made COH great: one element that is perhaps less obvious from this distance is that it was a [i]superhero game[/i]. Remember, despite the popularity of the genre and the widespread interest in superheroes among computer gamers, the [url=http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/08/25/curse-of-the-superheroes]Curse of the Superhero Game[/url] had vanquished repeated attempts to make functioning computer games in the genre. Eventually one or two single-player, offline titles came out, but really there was nothing online multiplayer available at all until long after COH came out. It was the one that didn't turn out to be vaporware.
And in being a superhero game, it let you summon thunderclouds, punch people across Atlas Park, shoot lasers from your eyes, turn invisible, and FLY. And being multiplayer, other people could SEE you doing these things (well, except for the "turn invisible" one) and JOIN you in doing them. That was -- and remains -- damned cool.
Other games came along later. To be honest, DCUO and CO might be okay superhero games. Whatever their merits, though, where they inevitably trailed behind COH was in [i]time[/i]. As the older game, COH had a lot more development, more storyline, more content, more complexity, more quality-of-life improvements, and all the other many improvements that come from being an OLDER game (as long as that older game has been receiving investment of time and attention, which it had.)
One other benefit came from being a older, established game. A certain percentage of the impatient, try-it-now player population can't stand to be in games that aren't the latest thing, and they leave older games. Some might say that improved the experience, and the community, for those who remained in the games. :)
Captain of Phoenix Rising
It's not necessarily the [b]better[/b] items that bind on pickup, but the [i]signature[/i] items for various content. For example, in SWTOR, the 'Hammer Station' flashpoint drops include "Hammer Station [b]X[/b]" armor pieces; these are all BoP, so you know if you see a character wearing one of those pieces, you know that the character completed that flashpoint. Now, if the signature gear had unique appearances, it would be even better, but with the ratio between the number of different types of, say, heavy armor chest pieces in the game and the number of [i]models[/i] for heavy armor chest pieces that it is practical to get the Art Department to [b]make[/b], you'd be able to get the same appearance from a number of different pieces of gear -- but people being able to see that you're wearing 'Hammer Station Greaves' or 'Athiss Enforcer's Helmet' tells them something about your character's history in-game.
Glove hands. The single most significant feature I remember about CoH
Crowd Control Enthusiast
The community of CoH is the best I have ever gamed with. The environment fostered good will.
I remember logging into Atlas for the first time. I made a controller: earth/kinetics and her name was Fig of Nature on Guardian. I remember hearing the theme song to the zone and noticing someone beating the crap out of a thug on the street with these yellow things popping out all over (spines scrapper). I thought to myself, coolest place ever. I found my home.
The story lines and humor peppered throughout, the game play which required (started in i3) teams and everyone being so helpful with answering questions...these are some of the things that kept me coming back.
The above was my first impression of the game. It stuck with me until they closed the doors. The sense of loss from never logging into my characters again will never leave me, but, I sure do look forward to discovering and participating in new heroic opportunities.
I'm excited!
While I agree that this was probably a good thing for the community, this probably was a factor in whatever reasons NCSoft used to decide to shut the game down. ... But it is a truth, nonetheless, and one that MWM will have to keep in mind.
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indeed.
What made CoH special for me was the flexibility of the character creator. Both on the costume side and on the powers side, this game could accomodate so many ideas for characters. No other game helped capture the imagination of the player like CoH did.
I loved it's leveling sytem. Being able to pick which powers would get an extra slot or two, then deciding exactly what I put into those slots gave me such a sense of control over my character's growth.
And I thought the incarnate system was a brilliant concept for end game as well. The way the game encouraged participation in it's giant PvE tasks for your endgame.
No game did the pet archtype like CoV did. Probably miss my Mastermind the most D:
All these things are what made the game special to me.
Good point. I think the problem toward the end was that NCSoft tried to make CoX everything for everybody instead of focusing on its loyal core audience. So when that didn't quite work, I think they lost interest in keeping it alive. (Totally my speculation, not based on any referenceable evidence.) I think trying to get absolutely everyone interested in a game eventually pleases no one. I believe MWM's best chance of success is to decide on the audience they want to reach with CoT and stick to that.
There's a reason Italian restaurants don't sell mattresses.
Spurn all ye kindle.
An Italian restaurant that sells mattresses. That would be awesome I can get my good eat on, and a thing to rest on at the same place. Or maybe they offer try it out for a few hours after a good meal.
But in all seriousness though, yeah eventually the target audience will have to be decided. But that doesn't mean the target audience must be small. It is possible to have mass widespread appeal, but it's an art to pull it off. Not many game makers pull it off, but there every so often there is a game where many different type of players can find enjoyment all in one game. But the stakes are higher because mess it up, end up pleasing no one. Sometimes though that happens because some view points of what is fun is discounted. Like thinking of it in a "this or that" fashion. Like statements like "People enjoy the journey of leveling up or else they are people that will speed through and leave anyways." or "Well leveing up is fun, because having a fully decked out toon is no fun."Maybe to that person but pfor some having a fully decked out toon iis THE fun for them. While for others, the jourtney is it when top level is reached, they are looking into starting a new toon. and also it's not thinking about the vast amount of possibiliites like maybe they do enjoy leveling up if the content is fun for them to take their time. Maybe the rate they level. up is fun for them./ Or maybe simply having a level 50 toon decked out is fun for them. There are many differen things that appeal and is fun to people which may be at the same time boring to others. For some it's a pain in butt to have a hero and start off weak. In comic books, sometimes besides maybe one or two issues, the hero isnt spending most of their existence learning their powers and stuff. They are fully powered super hero kicking butt and taking names. Their growth may be touched on once or twice if at all. And to some that is what make comic books boring to some people and people want more into what makes the hero tick and how they came to be. Others don't care and want to simply see the powerful hero kicking butt. Both valid, both fun both boring depending on who is asked. Luckily unlike print, it doesn't mean both cannot be kept in mind and find a medium where it appeals to both in some sort.
Although it's easier to focus on one single group and likings, although in this case it will kind of go back on the premise of the target group, a game for the community by the community. I guess it was expected by some didn't there is so many faucets and sides within this one community. Let alone the new people. But to focus on one specific group, is easy but tends to stunt growth. Because, even if the focus on one group, that automatically shut everyone else out, so the appeal is slimmer. Then there is a chance that the way it's done do not appeal to the target or what the target had in mind, which make it even slimmer. And thus in a way too much focus on one group can be just as bad as too wide range of a focus.
One thing the game makers can do to help appeal to a wide range of thing is first take the points 1 for one. Not brownie points simply because it's popular, or seem popular or brought up by a popular person. not saying they have been picking favorites. A lot of ideas are about adding options to there and not so much replacing. Addition is a easy way to appeal to wider market. A lot of the reasons against is simply because someone doesn't like it even when the idea by definition would even affect them in any way if they didn't want to partake, which limits appeal. Of course cant please everyone but that doesn't mean ya can only please a few. There are games with millions of players, and yes some of them are grind that many here find boring and don't understand how people find it enjoyable. But the thing is fun is very subjective. What is fun to one is total hell want to get it over with quick to someone else. And in a way, it can be done with both. The hard part is what happens when ya put both and have them interact? Now if a game could be played completely solo with no team gated stuff, then the meshing problem would be less issue. But with a game that have team gated stuff, the meshing issue is only a matter of time before it becomes a problem. I.E AE babies versus those that "Worked hard and earned their stripes." Although earning the stripes could be said of marketeers that farm for billions and people who earn cash by playing the game the old fashioned way. While things like leveling too fast, or what is considered leveling too leveling too fast may be an and leveling too fast is handing the game to them without work. So is earning currency too fast where one in a matter of hours buy anything and everything and don't even have to play the game at all to get the stuff they need.
Appealing to a wide market is not a bad thing, but it's not easy. Usually the appeal come later, simply from someone going out there listening to the players of their respective market, like FPS, listening to what people are looking for, sometimes it's abstract, and lot of times at the time it was not a popular idea and was said wouldn't work inot that game. Like storylines, many people was against it in the beginning. With many people dismissing it as "you want storyline, go play an MMO". Yet it was put in now it's expected and now some FPS are being criticize for haiving no storyline and immersion. Go figure and how times have changed (thanks Halo). And that idea even though it was unpopular and thought of as too much work and not belonging in that genre, became popular once it was implemented effectively and eventually became that is how it must be done. Most ideas start that way. The ones that fade into nothingness after a few years are the ones that take the too safe path and do things simply because that is how this game or that game did it instead of looking at what can work, and might work, and lets try it approach and they usually end up appealing to no one at all for long. Or worse, being called a simple clone of another game, a rip off, a watered down version of a game that took risk and made it work a fake, very vanilla game that brings nothing new to the table, a good game to play when bored.
Just in case someone forgets, this is just my view of it, doesn't mean it's absolute truth. It's just what I see and what I saw other may see it differently and seen something else.
A lot of what made it stand out for me was it being the first MMO i really got into and invested some (ok, far too much) time in, the first one where i took the time to get to know people outside of the game aswell as online.
I was never a comic book kid, I'm still not these days, but something about the game just appealed to me in that it wasn't set in the "classic" RPG world of elves/dwarfs etc.
I must admit i was absolutely gutted when they announced the game was shutting down. I hadn't played for a year or so by that point but i'd occasionally jump back in for a look around and a bit of nostalgia. When i went back to it after the shutdown and saw the farewell message on the main coh.com page i sat there like a stunned mullet for a good 10 minutes - guess it's right what they say, you don't truly miss something until it's gone.
On the plus side, i get to go through the whole pre-release excitement again :D
Just not part of their long term plan, the real shame is their decision not to sell it to Paragon Studios.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
For me it was the flexibility of the character creator(bios included). I would usually spend and hour or two just coming up with a unique costume and name for my toon. It was every part "mine" as anything else. Then there where the sounds, hearing hasten start up when you logged in, or hearing the police scanners as you loaded into the zone. From the background music to the turning on of a power like Super Speed, it was just the right amount of perfect.
Then there was the powers themselves, super strength felt "mighty" with its thunderous punches and thematic powers like throwing a piece of floor, or raging out for a while. Movesets like Invul made me turn toggles off and on just for the sfx and the appearance.
Finally came the city itself, every zone felt different, they each came with an atmosphere, from the Hollows to Founders Falls, they were both beautiful and deadly.
Also, Warshades and Peacebringers.....nothing really much more sexier than those.
"A true hero, is the sum of his accomplishments, no man won the hearts of the people by assuming he's better than them, he is a citadel for the people, a vessel to which hope and strength is carried on." - Marcus Falcon
SFX often influenced my toon designs. I made an Invulnerability Tanker with metallic skin, and ran some of the Invuln toggle effects all the time with their brightness turned up, so he was [i]shiny[/i]. I made a Djinni using Dark Melee and Fire Armor (djinni are "spirits of smoke and flame.")
Captain of Phoenix Rising
Sidekick/Lackey was awesome and was part of how major groups like Pinball Wizards and Repeat Offenders had tons of fun. I loved COH and many of you mentioned features I loved:
* Macros
* Custom looks and feels
* no holy trinity
* buff stacking
* Impressive Vertical as well as Horizontal content. Flying, jumping and TPing around was so rewarding and awesome.
Pinball Wizards
Repeat Offenders
The first thing that made me realise CoH was special was when I first got to playing the game and we were in a TF, I must have been about level 10 and completely noob to online gaming and gaming in general. We found a glowie that would not click, we reset the missions and it kept borking on us, and nothing was going to help us complete the TF. Our team leader reported it to support and something happened which completely blew my mind.
One of the police drones you would see hovering about protecting the city came hovering into the map while we were all hanging about waiting to see if anything would happen. It had the title of the support manager and was lvl 50, it came into chat and started chatting with us all, fixed our problem and stuck around showing off its powers for a while. It quite honestly blew my mind that these things were happening real time in game . I was hooked.
day one vet
I also like to add that, while there was no true holy trinity(as you could complete missions with a team of damn near anything) it felt that much more epic when there was a tank and or controller on the team. Watching Earth/Kin trollers summon volcanic gasses and siphon away the end of the enemy was pretty awesome for a noob, and honestly, it never lost its charm. A good tank made you feel like you were a part of the team, he/she was the vanguard, they knew the way and never gave up. Which is what made me focus on making every tank I made hit lvl 50.
There was that everlasting feeling of hero, when you used your class effectively. From Blaster to Defender, if you knew how to stay alive and work together, you could run one single team for hours.
"A true hero, is the sum of his accomplishments, no man won the hearts of the people by assuming he's better than them, he is a citadel for the people, a vessel to which hope and strength is carried on." - Marcus Falcon
For me, it's crystal-clear that it was th uncomplicated teaming in the game. No matter what level you had, you always can jump in. I see this in no other MMO out there. They are build that everyone can do anything alone and the people do this of course, but when I'm playing a MMO I also want to team up with other people and not just in this dungeons.
Of course it was the character builder too. You can build a toon and be sure that you will never meet a clone from it in the game, the character was just... unique and that's why we miss the game so much. No one matters when one of this fantasy MMOs will shut down, because you can make an elf everywhere again, but not an mastermind or a scrapper. This was just special.
I made an account just to reply to this. What made COH special to me was Atlas Park. That place was like a safe haven of excellent community where 100's of people could stand together in one spot, under the Atlas Statue. THAT place made everything click! With player driven costume contests, dance offs, story gatherings, awesome duels, and way more! Other MMO's just spread people out, especially DCUO. Those are some awful wall placements.
I will also say that Character creation grabbed hold of me for hours! That's pretty much covered here, so I have no worries about that!
Damn, I'm actually starting to cry thinking about that place. I'm gonna go listen to the ost on YouTube.
After a stressful day at work it was great taking my scrapper to Romulus' wall in Cimerora or into AE and taking on Statesman, Beef Cake, or one of my self made gauntlets. And, being able to create two of my favorite Champions RPG characters using a combination of Ancillary, Patron, IO, Incarnate and alignment systems.
For me it was a mixture of these things:
./Badge reward system
./Giant world bosses to kill in huge raid groups
./story & organizations
./customizing
./big open world connected to each other maps (I'd love to see some SANDBOX characteristics here)
./Criminals interacting with civilians on the streets
./SEWERS!!!!
./The ability to write your own story on your Heroe's profile
What I would like to see:
Sandbox features
Diving/fighting in the water (includes water superpowers)
more solo play features
reward system (not only badges but actual costumes or treasures or unique content)
Vehicles travel powers IE motorcycle, plane, helicopter, sports car, super car etc...
Ragdolls
NON-TARGETING system, make it free aim
More power explosions or effects, make it feel like when you use a power it looks epic (make earth tremble, huge blasts, huge explosions, destroying evironment)
World PVP (shareing zones with heroes and villians)
I would love to help on this project, send me a message.
This would hinder the game's accessibility to young players, older players, or someone with a hand mobility limitation -- basically, making the game less-playable or unplayable for anyone who doesn't have the eye-hand coordination ability to reliably target moving objects on the screen. It's supposed to be an MMORPG, not an MMOFPS.
And should we rename the game to 'City of Gankers' while we're about it? CoH had open-world PvP in Bloody Bay, Siren's Call, and Warburg; how well-populated were these zones? There will be characters of a wide span of levels in most of the zones; from my experience with other MMOs, if you [i]allow[/i] people to run around the open-world areas and freely attack anyone of the opposite faction they find, the game [i]will[/i] attract people whose self-worth is measured by their being able to demonstrate how superior and '1337' they are as a gamer by running around with their level-capped character ganking low-level characters.
You can wrap it in protections -- having a PvP flag that you can control (within constraints; you shouldn't be able to, for example, toggle on your PvP flag, toss a level-50 fireball into the crowd of level-10-and-below characters around Miss Liberty, then toggle the flag off to prevent retaliation), so that if you don't want to participate in PvP, you can leave it off and go about your gaming without worring about random ganking. However, the design process for such a flag needs to be considered carefully. For example, in SWTOR, you can turn your PvP flag [b]on[/b] at will, which makes you able to be attacked by opposite-faction players, but turning it [b]off[/b] requires that you flip it to 'off' in your character settings, then refrain from any PvP activity for ten minutes. Where the process falls down is that [i]any[/i] activity connected to PvP will [b]automatically[/b] turn your PvP flag on. Healing a player that is flagged for PvP is a PvP action. Buffing a player that is flagged for PvP is a PvP action. Using an AoE attack when an opposite-faction player flagged for PvP is in the target area is a PvP action. During the recent 'Rakghoul Plague' event, most of which takes part in a shared instance, there were players from both factions who would take level-capped characters into the zone, flag themselves for PvP, and then hang around in the shared instance waiting for players with lowbie characters participating in the event and would run up to stand next to their targets hoping to get caught in an AoE so that the lowbie's PvP flag would kick on, allowing them to gank the lowbie. This was never done (at least in my sight) against characters within 5 levels of the would-be ganker; it was always a 'victim' at least ten levels lower, and more commonly fifteen or twenty.
Now, I concede that 'contagious' PvP flagging may be necessary for balance -- having two characters fighting while one is getting healing from a third party who can stand there, immune to attack, is inherently unfair. However, being able to unilaterally force someone [b]else's[/b] PvP flag on just by getting caught in an AoE effect is equally unfair. Open-world PvP is a huge can of worms that requires a great deal of consideration to keep it from being something that the PvPers can arbitrarily drag non-PvPers into.
Entirely agree, and I suspect so do the vast majority of CoH players, while these things are reasonable choices for a new game, they are not for one claiming to be a spiritual successor to CoH, I know I couldn't/wouldn't play it if these were implemented, not being able to opt out of PvP means the game doesn't even get a look from me.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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I have to say that there were a few key features that kept me paying for two accounts.
1) The thrill of flying at level 6. - OK, so it was Hover at level 6, but I was so happy when I first leveled a toon and was able to pick up Hover. I floated up to the blimp circling Atlas Park and the surrounding area. I had always wanted to fly and giving me that option, won me over.
2) I really enjoyed playing controllers. It was the first time I had pets to help do my bidding. My very first controller was Ice / Emp and I had such a great time playing it. I then made a Fire / Rad next and then just kept making more and more. When City of Villains came on, Master Mind was my new favorite. I think my favorite was Necro / Poison. I played that toon nonstop and it was my main when running many of the task force runs and other end game content.
3) The friends I made in game were the icing on the cake. Being able to log in and know that several of my friends would be on and sending tells and PM's asking me to run this or join that. It was a real sense of family. It lasted right up to the end of the game.
4) Making my own missions. We spent many hours running each other's missions. CoX gave us such great power when we were able to craft our own missions.
5) All the new power sets that were added as the game continued on. It was awesome to see new styles of play and new character types. I finally made a blaster when Water Blast was introduced as a power set. I had even started making Twitch TV broadcasts of the game play. It was so much fun right up to the end. None of the other games have the same feel, look or movement that I really enjoyed with CoX.
I SO did this ^_^
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I started playing back in Issue 2. In the first week, I must have rerolled Redlynne at least a half dozen times before getting to Level 10. I didn't even have my own computer to play the game on. Instead, I went to the university, plunked myself down in front of a computer in the lab [i]and clean installed and patched the game[/i] to be able to play. Took about an hour before I could log in and play. I was doing this DAILY for quite a few months at a stretch (before Lin Chiao Feng took pity on me and donated to me a computer I could use to play City of Heroes on).
I was the Player who preferred to start off in Galaxy City instead of Atlas Park, and I remember being teamed up with another newbie when we both hit Level 6 and then had to head off into The Hollows.
Now I had done a lot of pre-planning work, made myself a build plan (on paper, Mids' didn't exist in those days) and was sticking to it. At Level 6, I picked up Combat Jumping, as planned, because I was building a "natural" martial artist type of character. My PuG friend of the last couple missions picked up ... Hover ... and I'll never forget the impression it made on me. I stood there, rooted on the ground by Ms. Liberty, as my PuG friend [i]sslloowwllyy[/i] rose straight up in the air ... stopped ... and then started floating forwards above me as they Hovered off to whatever it was they wanted to see. I just [i]stood there[/i] in game while I rocked back in my computer chair, my mouth hanging open and my hands away from keyboard and mouse ... gawping ... as the following words echoed around inside my skull in shock:
Even worse, because I'd chosen Combat Jumping instead of Hover, my build was now locked into the Leaping Pool instead of the Flight Pool, meaning that if I wanted to do [b]THAT[/b] I'd either have to respec (it's a long way from Level 6 to 24!) ... or reroll AGAIN.
Needless to say, I rerolled, since getting to Level 6 took about 90 minutes of effort (and since I now knew how the game played and what to expect, it was a lot faster than the first half dozen times I'd done it).
But seeing UNslotted Hover, at Level 6, in Issue 2 ... when the movement speed was about as fast as Walk was years later ... that was something I'll never forget, especially since I felt so unbelievably [b]ENVIOUS[/b] in that moment, and regretted ever imagining that Combat Jumping could be a better choice than Hover!
Needless to say, I went on to enjoy 6 slot Hover until Enhancement Dysfunction came along and completely ruined my character (Super Reflexes was *especially hard hit* by Enhancement Dysfunction) until Inventions came along [b]two YEARS later[/b] to fill in the gaping hole left by Enhancement Dysfunction. Even after Inventions though, I pretty much never once took Fly on any of my characters, because Hover and Sprint (plus Ninja Run later on) were plenty enough Movement Powers for me.
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What I miss most of all on City of Heroes was the community, I played it for 6 years straight almost every day because I,m retired, I made friends in the game that I still in contact with them trough the phone or e-mails, some days I log on and it was easy to join a team, sometimes they would ask me if I wanted to join, and if I send a global message I would find a team in minutes, I was never alone, and those task force was , lots of fun, with people with a great sense of humor. I've been playing Star wars for a while and I'm surprise of the people that play Star wars are very rude and if you ask for help they decline, that was not the case on COH everybody was willing to help you, even if you just hang out by the tram someone will ask you if you want to do a mission or a TF. Tears rolled down my face when they announce they were closing the game. I miss it very much. I would not mind that City of Titans is not the same as COH but at least to have the essence of COH
6 years veteran of COH
The big thing for me was the community, but I suspect that will replicate itself on its own if CoT is true enough to its roots.
From a gameplay perspective, I think the big thing was the variety of play styles that CoH supported, specifically in a mechanical sense. My Emp/Dark Defender for example played nothing like my Fire/Fire Blaster, who played nothing like my Illusion/Kinetic controller. Heck even my Stone/Dark tanker didn't play exactly like my Will/KM tanker.
Between that and the ability to look like anything I wanted I was able to create so many characters to help me stay interested in the game long after I'd run through all of the content multiple times.
I'd originally thought I'd resurrect the lot of them in CoT, but I suspect that with it's new lore and varied powersets I'll actually be inspired to create a whole new set of alts instead.
http://storytreader.com - A collection of stories for you to enjoy.
As long as it incorporates the same mechanics that made it possible to team up with [i]anyone[/i] regardless of level and have everyone in the team be able to contribute in missions and get rewards appropriate to their level, I think that community will coalesce on its own from the seed crystal of all the people from CoH. From what I've seen in other MMOs, the lack of a mechanism to allow characters outside of a narrow level range to team up and everyone contribute and get XP/rewards inherently creates divisions between players -- the ability to introduce friends to CoH and join their starting characters with any of your existing characters, instead of having to create new characters to play with them made bringing friends into the game so much less annoying.
I agree. Also, don't forget the absence of tying loot to appearance and the fact that most content was instanced -- both of which helped avoid the competitive atmosphere of other MMOs and promoted cooperation.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I feel the opposite way concerning the instancing of most content with CoX.
For me, it took away from the co-operation that sprung up from just meeting people out in the game world. Now maybe I have been lucky, but across a *wide* range of MMO's for me (typically RP-PvE servers just so you know), when I got stuck, there was normally one or two people in the area who would typically come down and help me out in a pinch... with no need for the whole "add to team" just so that they can enter my mission instance (unless phasing was involved in the zone).
However, in CoX, if I was stuck in a mission, I would normally have to *grind* my way through it (with trips to hospital when I died so I could restock up on inspirations).
The things that made CoX great were the complete originality of the game was. No Marvel or DC pre-made characters to sponge off of. All the story lines were specifically created for the game. All the characters were home-grown. I guess the short and skinny of it is it didn't feel like you had to prescribe to a prebuilt world. Yes, some zones didn't get the play they could have (Shadow Shard?), but others were well planned and played.
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