TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:
The idea is not to end up with "the real game" begins at level 20, the game begins at the start of character creation.

But that is precisely the effect you will have if we can't make the character's we want to make from the start.
Anything I'm forced to wait through before my character becomes what I wanted, is a waste of my time.
If I like the low level stuff it'll probably be with the kind of character, I'll turn XP off on at 20th level or sooner.
You need to realize that in a superhero game, characters are Primary. Content will always be secondary.

But its a MMO 1st, then a Superhero game.. Right!!??

Leo_G wrote:

Well answer how the game wasn't repetitive. I can make a list of what was the culprits:
- at some point, you memorize the portions of the maps not to mention many maps are used a lot more often than others.
- objectives were limited. You can pretty much boil them down to "kill all", "click glowie(s)", "kill boss" and "kill last room". It was rare to come upon something different.
- enemies weren't varied within their groups making them very predictable. There ate exceptions like the Rikti or CoT but they were the minority and yet still wholly predictable.
-character progress wasn't very varied. Badges and accolades was a start but they could have expanded more on it so it wasn't just gaining xp, inf, enhancements then incarnate stuff at max.
-Because of the above, mission structure could *ONLY* be repetitive. From gaining missions from contacts to traveling to the instance door and doing the same structured content.
There's other minor things like textures and music that might be looked over as just limitations of budget but these things made what content was developed for the game very stale. There were other aspects of the game that helped keep people playing such as the customization and AE to make your own missions but none of that makes the flaws go away.

Hmmm. After reading and considering your post, I understand much better.

Like all games I've played, there was some amount of repetitiveness in CoH (just realized I typo-ed both spellings of "repetitive" in my initial post. That's embarrassing.). But for some reason it didn't bother me like it did in the other games.

Upon further reflection, I realize that the reason was that, for me, the game itself was so much more fun to play than the others that the repetitiveness not only didn't feel stale to me, I barely even noticed it.

I think my question has been answered. Thanks :).

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Wrong!
I'm not playing it because it's an mmo. I'm playing because it's a superhero game.
That's way I said I'm really excited about the offline game.

No matter why any individual player decides to play it, it's still both.

I was not aware that there was an offline version of this game. I thought it was an online MMO game only. Am I wrong?

Empyrean wrote:

TheMightyPaladin wrote:
Wrong!
I'm not playing it because it's an mmo. I'm playing because it's a superhero game.
That's way I said I'm really excited about the offline game.

No matter why any individual player decides to play it, it's still both.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Once Again wrong
I'm actually playing it IN Spite OF it being an mmo Because its a Superhero game.

Just to be clear, your statement does not negate or make my statement wrong in any way.

Whether you're playing it "because it's a Superhero game" or "in spite the it being an MMO" doesn't change the fact that it is both.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Actually the offline version makes your statement false

If you only play the offline modules of the game, then you are technically correct--which, as every good bureaucrat knows, is the best kind of correct.

But should they design the entire game as if it were an offline game and then let people play it as an MMO, or should they design the game as an MMO and then let people play it offline? It seems obvious which of these is more workable.

Or, more to the point WILL they design the entire game as if it were an offline game and then let people play it as an MMO, or will they design the game as an MMO and then let people play it offline? It also seems obvious which of these they will do.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Seriously I don't know. It depends on just how limited that is. Frankly I'm more interested in patrolling the streets than doing missions but I'm going to give both a try. What I wont try is teaming up with other players, and pvp. The things that make it an mmo. And I wouldn't be doing that kind of stuff even if there were no offline game.
I'm also really looking forward to being able to make missions in whatever version of AE is included.

Well, even though you won't be participating in the MMO portion, could I run your missions for fun anyway :D? Maybe even :O, with you some time?

Empyrean wrote:

Leo_G wrote:
Well answer how the game wasn't repetitive. I can make a list of what was the culprits:
- at some point, you memorize the portions of the maps not to mention many maps are used a lot more often than others.
- objectives were limited. You can pretty much boil them down to "kill all", "click glowie(s)", "kill boss" and "kill last room". It was rare to come upon something different.
- enemies weren't varied within their groups making them very predictable. There ate exceptions like the Rikti or CoT but they were the minority and yet still wholly predictable.
-character progress wasn't very varied. Badges and accolades was a start but they could have expanded more on it so it wasn't just gaining xp, inf, enhancements then incarnate stuff at max.
-Because of the above, mission structure could *ONLY* be repetitive. From gaining missions from contacts to traveling to the instance door and doing the same structured content.
There's other minor things like textures and music that might be looked over as just limitations of budget but these things made what content was developed for the game very stale. There were other aspects of the game that helped keep people playing such as the customization and AE to make your own missions but none of that makes the flaws go away.

Hmmm. After reading and considering your post, I understand much better.
Like all games I've played, there was some amount of repetitiveness in CoH (just realized I typo-ed both spellings of "repetitive" in my initial post. That's embarrassing.). But for some reason it didn't bother me like it did in the other games.
Upon further reflection, I realize that the reason was that, for me, the game itself was so much more fun to play than the others that the repetitiveness not only didn't feel stale to me, I barely even noticed it.
I think my question has been answered. Thanks :).

Well hopefully you'll understand other's perspectives as well as how to provide objective feedback, or at the least recognize when you're bias. Subjectiveness and nostalgia have their place and it's up to us to know where those boundaries are.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

But that is precisely the effect you will have if we can't make the character's we want to make from the start.
Anything I'm forced to wait through before my character becomes what I wanted, is a waste of my time.
If I like the low level stuff it'll probably be with the kind of character, I'll turn XP off on at 20th level or sooner.

I'm having a really hard time seeing this as anything other than a very selfish outlook on gaming. Taken to its logical (extreme) conclusion, this sounds an awful lot like wanting to create characters at the Level Cap so as to skip over all the "boring stuff" designed to waste your time. Indeed, this perspective borders on the "just gimmie the cheat codes already!" entitlement that some gamers have (and project).

The point I'm trying to make here is that [b]it sounds like[/b] you're saying only a minority "slice" of the game's content will ever interest you ... rather than the entire game as a whole ... and that anything outside of that "slice" is of absolutely no interest to you (because it's a "waste of your time" as you said).

May I say that hearing such sentiments is something I find sorrow inducing and pitiable?

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

For what it's worth I don't value and wont be part of any "community".
I'm hoping to play the game and that's it.
I'm very excited about the offline version of the game I've heard about,
I probably wont log in at all, except to get updates.

So you want to play SOLO rather than MULTIPLAYER.

Fair enough. This is actually a relatively common sentiment. A LOT of gamers prefer to play Solo as their default mode of operation. Indeed, I'd even go so far as to say that in most MMORPGs, the majority of Players are Soloists most of the time. Indeed, the majority of Mids' Hero Planner builds posted on the old City of Heroes forums were Soloist builds, as opposed to Team builds.

However, it's a fairly big jump to go from "I [b]could[/b] team up if there's a team doing content I like" to the almost opposite pole of "I'll [b]never[/b] team up with anyone else ever!"

Saying that you "don't and won't be a part of any 'community'" as you have ... really limits you ... in ways that I'm not sure you appreciate. And I'm honestly sorry that you feel that way ... [b]even before having played City of Titans[/b].

Leo_G wrote:

Well hopefully you'll understand other's perspectives as well as how to provide objective feedback, or at the least recognize when you're bias. Subjectiveness and nostalgia have their place and it's up to us to know where those boundaries are.

After I read and considered your post and said that it helped me understand and changed my views, you said that you hope I will understand other's perspectives.

Then you clearly insinuate that I'm biased, subjective, and nostalgic and that I'm unaware of where the boundaries between biased and objective lie and so need to learn how to give objective feedback.

Which of course assumes that what you stated is unbiased, objective, and not influenced by sentiments such as nostalgia. Basically, that you are right.

But since we are all, as humans, unavoidably somewhat biased, subjective, and influenced by sentiment--which of the two of us is it who doesn't know where the boundary lies?

Empyrean wrote:

Leo_G wrote:
Well hopefully you'll understand other's perspectives as well as how to provide objective feedback, or at the least recognize when you're bias. Subjectiveness and nostalgia have their place and it's up to us to know where those boundaries are.

After I read and considered your post and said that it helped me understand and changed my views, you said that you hope I will understand other's perspectives.
Then you clearly insinuate that I'm biased, subjective, and nostalgic and that I'm unaware of where the boundaries between biased and objective lie and so need to learn how to give objective feedback.
Which of course assumes that what you stated is unbiased, objective, and not influenced by sentiments such as nostalgia. Basically, that you are right.
But since we are all, as humans, unavoidably somewhat biased, subjective, and influenced by sentiment--which of the two of us is it who doesn't know where the boundary lies?

You can view it however you want. It just really struck me broadside that you couldn't recognize a unanimously agreed upon flaw (I mean practically everyone agreed that CoH was repetitive, it was pretty much the main flaw, gameplay-wise) then go on to explain why you don't see that as a flaw. I'm not some jaded player who secretly hated coh. I'd have never left if I wasn't forced to leave. Still not going to sugar coat it's issues.

As far as nostalgia goes, the more I read of this forum, the more nostalgia naturally pops up, but in a feedback thread, I get the impression that useful feedback is too rare because of nostalgia (yeah I said it, most posters don't leave good criticism) and if these forms are meant for nostalgia and the devs no longer want feedback, we'll. . . I'll just say that's probably a bad decision.

"It mostly really slowed the game down. Tons of frustrating waiting around. Lag inside missions, Angry people yelling at each other for the way they play and God help you if you actually messed something up, like not being able to keep up with the guy they told you to follow."

While I can empathize with this to an extent, mostly from playing WoW, I disagree with this wholeheartedly. I found the leveling with 8 member teams to be much more efficient and faster than soloing. Also playing the content was a lot more fun with more people. Towards the end of CoH the waiting around was almost non-existent. Especially with Team Teleport Temp Powers. The only Lag I ever experienced was doing the ITF and running up the hill, otherwise I never saw any. I also rarely experienced any discrimination on CoH because of not having the right powers or playing a specific way, unlike WoW where it is a requirement. Sounds like you had VERY bad luck when it came to game play while playing CoH.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

oOStaticOo wrote:
Towards the end of CoH the waiting around was almost non-existent. Especially with Team Teleport Temp Powers. The only Lag I ever experienced was doing the ITF and running up the hill, otherwise I never saw any.

Are you kidding me? Toward the end is when they started introducing those giant teams, with like 6 subteams. (can't remember what they were called) I tried that crap one time and that was enough for me to swear it off forever.
The waiting around for everyone to get ready and get briefed on what we were going to do was for freaking ever.
Then once it started, it was total freeking chaos. with so many special effects on the screen at once I was blind.
Even with a regular group, it wasn't always just getting everyone together, It was also people inviting their friends who were still in some other mission, or doing something else and making us wait around while they finished it. Sometimes we'd even be waiting forever on someone who was just AFK and we didn't even know, for sure, if they were going to join us when they got back. Then there were people who decided the group needed a particular type of character on the team so someone had to log off and switch to an alt who was the right class.
As for lag. I saw it every time I passed through Atlas park. I also remember having to leave the area around the Rikti Mother ship whenever there were enough people there to try to attack it, and having to leave the area of Rikti attacks because the lag would get so bad.
Leo_G wrote:
.
A bunch of crap that I wont bother responding to apparently he has a powerful desire to argue but nothing to say.

Incarnate Trials. Okay, yes, some of those were pretty bad about getting people together on and also with the lag. I'll admit that. I was talking about the regular game though, as Incarnate stuff was for people who only subscribed.

Again, you had some BAD people you teamed with. I am sorry that those people ruined you on team play. It really is quite fun if you have the right people to play with.

If you saw a lot of lag everywhere, then I wonder what your computer was like at that time. If it wasn't running some of the top of the line hardware then I can see how that might affect you and be an issue. I know not everybody can afford to buy the top of the line computer systems when games come out, which is why I wish designers would try to keep that in mind when programming so as to not cause those people those issues.

Leo_G wrote:

oOStaticOo wrote:
The repetitiveness of CoH was fun. The repetitiveness of other games is not. I think that boils down to how quickly the missions can be completed and how difficult they are. If it doesn't take a lot of time to finish and isn't extremely difficult, most people will not realize just how repetitious it really is. It's kind of like music in a store you work at, after a while you just tend to kind of tune it out and just go about doing your job not focusing on the same songs being played over and over again. If the missions are long and tedious then one tends to notice how painfully repetitious it is.
There is nothing wrong with being Nostalgic with CoH. CoH did MANY things right that other MMO's have NOT. In trying to keep true to CoH, we are attempting to help recreate this "Perfect" game we once had. Now I know it wasn't exactly "Perfect", but it was VERY close. Yes there are things that can be improved upon now that we have different hardware and software at our disposal, but there is nothing wrong with trying to keep it as close as we can to a game that we all loved very much and miss playing. Also CoT is being designed by players of CoH, naturally there will be some tendencies to try to emulate CoH. After all, they were players that didn't want to see their game shut down so it only seems logical to try to recreate that game as much as possible within the limits given.

I didn't say nostalgia was bad, but when you're trying to give feedback and improving off of what once was, it can cloud your perception. Like you throw around praise like it being almost perfect. You don't bother with objective points of view like the poor story telling tactics. And because that, you don't think on how to improve the clue/arc overview system coh had. You say coh wasn't repetitive, let's just gloss over those taskforces that literally had repeat missions right after each other or the mission structure that spawned it and all the people that complained about it. And because that, you don't look to gain a better game, just a mediocre copy. But hey, as long as it has Supreme customization, you don't even have to play the game to enjoy it.

I never said CoH wasn't repetitive. I said the repetition was more fun than other MMO's. I also said it was "Perfect", but not "Perfect". It offered more things that made it more fun than the other MMO's out there. So basically copy a lot of the things CoH did RIGHT and learn what NOT to do from the other MMO's. As far as you assuming that I can't offer any improvements because you think my judgment is clouded by my bias, you are wrong. I know there were some things wrong with CoH, and I know that there were things that were restricting CoH because of the software and hardware we had at the time. That doesn't mean I can't recognize that newer stuff is available for us to make improvements upon.

I think you need to stop putting words in people's mouths when you make statements like, I don't look to gain a better game, just a mediocre copy. You are wrong. I do want a better game. I just also want it to be as close to CoH as we can make it because it did a lot of things right. Super Side Kicking, Customization, Non Holy Trinity, Community, etc.

I'm not sure who peed in your Post Toasties this morning, but damn man chill out.

oOStaticOo wrote:

I'm not sure who peed in your Post Toasties this morning, but damn man chill out.

You No like Mini Cakes? Mmmmmmmmm.

[img]http://g.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/cocreate/imagecache/slideshow_small/slideshow/2012/12/1682097-slide-slide-3-urinal-cakes.jpg[/img]

Soooooo Tasty! :D

Segev wrote:

Consider that Batman is a "down to Earth" hero, in the sense that he is mortal and his powers are something anybody could technically attain...if they dedicated themselves correctly and could marshal the resources. Batman has taken on Darkseid successfully (albeit not easily and not with anything approaching a GOOD chance to win...and has died fighting him, as well, in other stories). He's also faced off with Brainiac and other cosmic-level threats. They're not his standard, but he does do it and succeed at it. It's one of the things that makes him so awe-inspiring to other superheroes, some of whom are more powerful in a technical sense and yet have less impressive track records.
Superman, meanwhile, is definitely a cosmic-level hero. Yet he still has a lot of "street-level" adventures. They tend to center less around personal danger and limitations, and more around ways that his moral code is used as a shield by unscrupulous bad guys, or around bad guys who get by with obfuscation of who they are, but they also happen.
So there's not necessarily this divide.
That said, if you have particular kinds of stories you want to see your characters in, that's more a matter of choosing what leads to follow, what missions to take.

+1 for two reasons

1) it makes me happy that the people involved with this game have such a good grounding in Superhero comic-book lore

2) as Sergev showed, this divide between cosmic and street in comic books does somewhat exist, but it's a gray area with many intermediate levels and exceptions

A hard, clean divide that is hardwired into the game really doesn't fit the actual comic book lore itself. It should at most be an optional system, and probably just handled by the individual player's internal story and choices.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Finally now we get back to a ridiculous example I cited early on: In champions Online, I fought off an alien invasion then battled my way across a radioactive desert full of mutants and supervillains, only to return to my home and find that I couldn't handle ordinary street thugs. I was assured that this was a problem of bad story telling, but the same thing could happen in COH and I expect to see it in this game too.
A hero who fought off several rikti invasions, battled his way through monster filled sewers and across insane uberviolent hazard zones and possibly helped battle several supervillains and giant monsters, might find that he can't handle a bunch of ordinary thugs, If the "ordinary thugs" are the COH version of the Family.
That means a "cosmic hero also couldn't handle these ordinary mobs.
Can you imagine the Silver Surfer going up against the Kingpin and getting his ass handed to him by the Kingpins thugs before he even reached Kingpin?! Not even one of the Kingpin's superpowered henchmen like the Answer (anyone remember him?) but just a bunch of palookas!
OK this problem I admit isn't inherit in levels it really is a problem of bad story telling and we should watch out for it. DO NOT have mobs of 50th level thugs. Instead, find other ways for ordinary thugs to be a challenge. Create more unique villains to fight at high levels like the green goblin, sandman and well most of the villains in every freeking comic book universe. Then give those villains some much less powerful goons, probably equipped with weapons that give them weaker versions of their master's powers. and have the villain be the center of some evil plot.

I do, however, in a general way agree with this. Please strive for as much internal consistency and logic as to power scale as is possible within the framework of the game.

*Just as a possibly amusing aside: I was talking to a good friend and fellow comic book fan about how inconsistent the quality level of the recent the Superhero movies has been (from on the low end Daredevil and Green Lantern to on the high end The Avengers and many of the Spiderman movies--some of which were on the low end!), and also about some of the logical inconsistencies. Cause, you know, I'm a nerd.

He said--"dude, think about how all-over-the-place and inconsistent actual comics can be! Only about one comic book in ten is actually good and only about one in a hundred is great. And sometimes a Superhero can barely get a cat out of a tree for a kid and then turns around and, oh, I don't know, punches out one of Galactus' Heralds."

He did have a point. The movies and games are generally doing much better than their actual source material.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

High level mobs the size of small armies are cool and all but when every member of the mob is a legitimate threat to a 50th level superhero because he has a billion health, not only does it not make sense but it makes the fights take freeking forever and it becomes tedious and boring.
Finally now we get back to a ridiculous example I cited early on: In champions Online, I fought off an alien invasion then battled my way across a radioactive desert full of mutants and supervillains, only to return to my home and find that I couldn't handle ordinary street thugs. I was assured that this was a problem of bad story telling, but the same thing could happen in COH and I expect to see it in this game too.
A hero who fought off several rikti invasions, battled his way through monster filled sewers and across insane uberviolent hazard zones and possibly helped battle several supervillains and giant monsters, might find that he can't handle a bunch of ordinary thugs, If the "ordinary thugs" are the COH version of the Family.
That means a "cosmic hero also couldn't handle these ordinary mobs.
Can you imagine the Silver Surfer going up against the Kingpin and getting his ass handed to him by the Kingpins thugs before he even reached Kingpin?! Not even one of the Kingpin's superpowered henchmen like the Answer (anyone remember him?) but just a bunch of palookas!

This is why I enjoy manga a lot more than comics, granted I can't say it's the comics fault for world inconsistencies but more the publishers attempting to hard-blend all their licenses for better audience coverage.

But anyway, it feels like manga more often creates it's own universe with its own rules, mythos and explains why things work the way they do. And if there are crossovers, they are handled like their own separate world that doesn't directly alter the original world.

Back to your example, you're right, silver surfer wouldn't have trouble with kingpins thugs nor kingpin himself. However, trying to run a parallel with CoH doesn't quite work because paragon isn't marvel. There is lore that explains why there are super powered foes by the dozens that exists on both sides, good and bad. That story point isn't present for marvel so it wouldn't make as much sense for King pin to have so many thugs with super strength and the ability to affect gravity.

I will agree that having an army of powered thugs lining the streets should be toned down and leave those thus with powers as something more special for instances.

But yeah I'm just gonna go down saying that the worlds you're trying to compare do have their differences. The ones that existed for coh had the purpose of explaining why there were so many powered PCs/NPCs.

The first thing we need to remember is that everyone who buys the game is entitled to play how they like as long as they're not disrupting other players. If one person wants to play only solo even to the point of playing offline (if that's possible) then that's up to them. Their doing so might be considered a waste by others but hey, they paid their fee the same as the rest of us. However the first time they pop in with cries of 'Not enough content' our reply will likely be 'Try playing the other 3/4ths of the game.'

Common versus Cosmic characters: This conversation, seated in the comic book realm, has NO place in a game setting. Those stories are scripted by writers with the outcomes already planned out. Unless you expect to play a scripted scene in an MMO you're out of luck. There is no way to accurately predict what will happen and anyone who expects otherwise will be disappointed. The same can be said of character concept. The game HAS to be designed with the broadest possible player base or it's doomed to fail. If only 20% of those players want cosmic characters guess where most of the content will be? There HAS to be a certain level of flexibility on the part of the players or again they're going to be very disappointed. By the way, cosmic level characters fighting only cosmic level foes is very boring. How many regular comic lines out there right now have such story lines? Superman stops common crimes all the time. Dr Strange does not. Who gets more pages printed per month? Not Dr Strange I can tell you that.

Repetitiveness: Yes, I agree with you here. My burning desire all through COH's history was one new map every time they had a new update. An office building, a warehouse, whatever. Static maps are among the least time-consuming things you can add to a game and yet we saw only a handful in 8 years. New missions was another issue. How many times can Dr Evil steal the oxygen-destroyer (and WHY would anyone build such a thing anyway)? However you again have to realize that there are a finite number of ways you can run the equation. You have X number of maps, Y number of missions and Z number of enemies. Even if you don't limit some of the combinations (to avoid the Fishmen fighting you in the Desert) you have a limited number of things to do. Interacting with others is one way to keep things fresh. Alts is another. I'm hoping the new Alignment system will also add some interesting wrinkles to the game. The players STILL have to maintain some suspension of disbelief. Otherwise a game like this simply isn't possible.

On skipping levels and/or content: Players WILL do this anyway but I see no reason to enable or encourage it. This is similar to the Total Respec thread we had running for a long time. Replayability is the lifeblood of an MMO since there is no other way to generate content as fast as a player can chew through it. Allowing players to start characters at any level higher than 5 (an estimated point at the end of the tutorial) is a bad idea IMHO. Say a player like Paladin won't be playing his street-level toons past 25 or so. How long before he plays through every combination to that point? Once he has then he's done and on to another game. Plus, skipping lower level content in any way means new players in for the first time might be looking at a ghost town instead of a lively city. This is NOT a good first impression.

I have no problem with others playing the game however they want as long as their play style doesn't interfere with mine or is not bad for the game in some way. If it's bad for the game than I say no.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Another thing to remember is that most players wont give a fig about game lore. They'll bring their own characters, probably characters they've played before in other games, and they'll have their own background stories. They might be playing This game because it lets them see their hero in action on the screen, but in their heads their playing in the same world their hero comes from.

Not true. Not even close to being true. Many players work within the Lore of whatever game they are currently playing. A few players bring in concepts from outside the established Lore, but those players are in the minority. If you want to play a D&D character in CoT (and if CoT follows the character creation diversity of CoH), then it will be up to the player to effectively explain why a character from Greyhawk City (or wherever) is now in a completely different fictional universe. Players like myself who keep their character completely immersed in the Lore and assumptions of whatever game they are currently playing will consider a character brought in from some other fictional realm as delusional, insane, and untrustworthy.

However, the safe money bet is that both groups (totally immersive, totally unrelated) are minorities within the much larger playerbase (the mythical "most") that falls somewhere between the two extremes.

This is an MMO first. Along with its unique genre makes it special too us (Of course not the only reason.) We are not donationing and piping for simply a hero game that allows you to make your own hero. Its more than that but its an MMO first. Whatever your reason for playing, this game is based on the idea and concept that we fight as our own heroes TOGETHER. You can solo and enjoy that. It's not a single player/multiplayer online game. This is an MMO first. If you want a single player game go play that game. I don't go to single player game to play with people.

Levels are part of the structure of the game we lost. They are trying to recreate that feel here. The core of this game is the core spirit/foundation of COX. There will be levels.

Greyhawk wrote:

TheMightyPaladin wrote:
For me and I believe an increasing number of people who play MMOs the social aspect is dead or dieing and we have no interest in reviving it. We don't want to meet strangers online.
We don't want to team up with strangers.
We don't PVP
And if we can't solo we aren't interested. That's why there's so much interest in the offline game.
The 2 things that will keep us interested for a long time are:
1) Lots of character customizing options
2) lots of different content to play.

What you're looking for isn't a MMORPG. And that's okay. No problem whatsoever. However, CoT will be a MMORPG. That's simply reality.

Pretty much. And while an MMO can be played in a fashion that is similar to single player games, that does not make it one.

I think of it like this. If someone buys a pickup truck and intends to use it to pull a plow to till their fields, it may well be able to do that. Might even manage to do it well. But that does not mean that the pickup truck is a tractor. It has similarities (engine, wheels, etc), but it was not designed to be a tractor and it should not be expected that the company making pickup trucks needs to redesign them to be better tractors.

Jacke wrote:

I would prefer a levelless skill-based system where you improve your skills by using them, just like in the real world.
The game would still need a system to rate how tough a character or an NPC was, though.

see even with that you are still working with levels... if the cap skill is 100 on said skill then that means you have X amount of skills to level up to 100.... either way you can't avoid levels in a game. I have played several games and there are always some time of levels in the game rather it be noticeable or not. unless it is a single player game where your health is your health and there is no increase to it unless you farm the gear to do so. If that were the case then that would mean your gear would still have a level or "item level" rating on it to make you stronger. There is no avoiding the leveling system no matter how you do it.

Of course we should have levels. People want a game like CoH. That means levels.

Also, if it wasn't level based and more skill point based, I would wonder why abilities couldn't be pick and choose (ie freeform).

Never saw a problem with levels. Only one it ever really seemed to bother (in my experience) was RPers who wanted to say their level 6 was really powerful and able to take on the max level characters!

Otherwise, if not RPing, then you're just playing the game and unlocking things like all games.

Brighellac wrote:

I remember hearing the level cap was 50 in city of heroes due to the game engine not being able to handle the travel speed at higher levels than 50. This seems like something the devs should be talking about at this point of development.

I'm not sure when or where you heard this but it wasn't the case. The travel speeds had a cap. There was a coding issue with improving upon that until one dev figured out a way to work with / fix / bend to his will the code and was able to make powers like Afterburn in the flight pool possible.

The main reason the level cap was not being raised was due to design methodology. The devs purposefully chose to stick with a level cap to avoid the requirements necessary to provide increased level cap such as: build improvement of powers slots, enhancement sockets, and powers to apply, content creation (zones, missions, mobs) designed to work with higher level caps. They made the decision instead to use the incarnate system which gave improved character building, performance, and limited versions of increased levels.

This type of character progression is considered more of a horizontal progression vs additional levels or vertical progression.