Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (
More info?)
Thus spake Knight37 <knight37m@email.com>, 13 Feb 2005 00:17:17 GMT, Anno
Domini:
>RogerM <rodger.mckay@ns.sympatico.ca> once tried to test me with:
>
>>> what he means is that the game, while initially is very, very cool,
>>> it gets REAL old, REAL fast, and that only by starting 29 other
>>> characters can the game be the least bit different.
>>
>> A lack of variety of gameplay is the culprit? But isn't that the case
>> for all online RPGs? Is it just much worse for CoH?
>
>I can see where CoH might have this problem worse than say EQ2 or WoW. The
>reason is that a) the quests all pretty much seem to be the same thing. Go
>kill X badies. Or Go into warehouse and kill everything that moves. Oh
>yeah, find the "clue" that's in there too. But be sure and wipe em all out,
>it's the only way to be sure. There is no "stealth" from what I can see,
>although I did see a power set that is for stealth so theoretically they've
>got some stealth-oriented missions too. Also the text for the missions is
>insanely generic. The minions are insanely generic. The villains, so far
>(which admittedly I'm way too early into the game to be a fair judge) are
>insanely generic.
Yes, to some extent. At higher levels you get more temporary power drop, but
personally I would've liked to have some permanent ones you could acquire,
so that, for example, a scrapper could stay at range & use a ranged temp
power for that nasty melee mob.
>And b) they don't have loot. You can aquire "enhancements' to your powers
>to improve them, but that just doesn't quite feel as "tangible" as finding
>a new sword or finding a new necklace that can improve your character in
>different ways.
Yes, loot should be there, but more as an add-on than the primary draw-card.
After all, who heard of superheroes who have to spend most of their time
acquiring & improving gadgets to be more effective? (well, except for maybe
Batman ;-) Other things that 'uniqify' characters are a good thing in
general.
>And c) the characters themselves, apart from LOOKING very unique, really
>are pretty much fluff. You got Generic Attack Power 001, Generic Area
>Effect Power 002, etc. Sure, they are each a little bit different. But not
>very much. And a Blaster speced out with power set A is IDENTICAL to
>another blaster speced out the same way from what i can tell. In other
>games you have variations in skills, variations in stats. In WoW you have
>the talent tree to differentiate yourself from others of the same class.
>Plus your stats can greatly affect your potential and you can concentrate
>on different ones depending on your play style. Not to mention the loot.
They also should've made a lot more out of the different dmg types. They
could've made different mob types more fire/cold/electricity/energy/etc
resistant/vulnerable - that way different mixes of ATs would be very useful
on different missions. As a primarily ice blaster I can take on almost
anything much like an energy or fire blaster (across similar powers). It
makes almost no diff unfortunately. They even should've made villains immune
to certain dmg types, just like characters should've had (temp) powers to do
the same.
>On the other hand, I was immediately in love with WoW from day one. It
>didn't FEEL like a grind to me. Even though essentially it is, but it still
>felt "new enough" and the game was immersive enough that I felt like I was
>actually playing a character and not just on some silly treadmill. And
>that's the difference, for me, between WoW and other MMOGs. Even EQ never
>had this much immersion for me, and it did it better than any previous game
>did. And for me, BEING the character in a fantasy world, well THAT is the
>whole POINT to an MMOG. The levels, the team tactics, etc etc. that's just
>all icing on the cake.
What team tactics in WoW lol? All I ever read is there are none - you can
solo the whole thing w/o so much as batting an eyelid.
>But its still pretty fun, at least so far. If I were not playing WoW I
>would definitely be playing CoH. I don't know if it has the "staying power"
>of an EQ or whatever, but it's certainly worth a few months subscription.
>And who knows, City of Villains may be completely awesome. If CoH has an RP
>server I'd like to try on one of those, I think part of what I miss about
>WOW is the other people who genuinely want to participate in playing a
>ROLE, not just grinding for XP.
Better to look for a TCP game with mates for that (ala NWN) than a mmorpg.
Really. XP grinding on the hamster wheel of success is all you'll ever get
from 95% of the ppl on there, along with some social chit-chat. The
difference between us may be, I happen to be ok with that sort of thing ;-p
>Oh yeah, one thing I wasn't sure I'd think was worthwhile but I've fallen
>in love with from CoH are the Inspirations or whatever they are called.
>These are little temporary buffs that you can use to enhance your abilities
>for a while, or heal yourself, or replentish your "mana" (power-battery),
>and even Rez yourself if you are "defeated." You have to keep using them to
>get new ones so you're constantly getting new power ups all the time. It's
>like a little mini-game built into the system. I wish WoW had this idea, in
>some way, it's pretty neat. WoW has potions and scrolls, but those are
>things you buy and things you can store up. With Inspirations it's like
>they encourage you to use em because the more you do the more you get, so
>you never really save them up you're just using them all the time.
Yup, they crop like candy. What I would've liked to see is 2 or 3 categories
of completely different Inspirations - from the current ones that last 30
secs to ones that last a whole mission to perhaps ones that last until you
level up - just to make some of them rare & really sought after. Then at
least you'd probably see more trading going on (along with personal 'vaults'
to store them like loot). As it stands, they are just throwaway/giveaway
items.
--
No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again.
Sometimes I just want it to stay saved! You know, for a little bit?
I feel like the maid; "I just cleaned up this mess! Can we keep it clean for... for ten minutes!"
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