Champions Online NDA dropped...game is worse than City of Heroes

[ManaByte]

LOL

Clunky, unresponsive, shallow, highly highly instanced (which should make performance good... but it doesn't), small, non-immersive, console-centric, solo-oriented, over-hyped and 100% not worth $15 a month.

I'd never pay a subscription for this game. Certainly if this beta client is close to what will be released at launch.

Looks like 2008's launch failures taught Cryptic NOTHING. They don't listen to their beta community. They ignore glaring, blatant holes in there product. And their huge egos and pride will get in the way of their launch.

CO isn't even 1/10th as pre-launch-popular as WAR or AoC and will be lucky to get 1/10th the initial box purchases that they do. So, you'd think that providing a near perfect game would be of utmost importance for word of mouth exposure. It isn't.

While the look of the game is beautiful (but, a personal preference) and the character creator is a-maz-ing, and the idea of testing all your powers before officially purchasing them is awesome, those are essentially all that feel really fleshed-out in the game. Everything else feels so very very shallow and half-assed, even playing a "shiney new" game, I was bored in a few hours every time. Even when I knew I had limited play time (which in other betas always motivates me to stay on as long as possible) in CO, I kept thinking to myself "this shit sucks. Maybe a new character will be fun". Nope. It's the game-play.

The stat distribution is daunting, boring, and mostly level based (items do distribute a small amount, but the “Big Boosts” are gained through levels). Powers are few and far between. Customizing the powers isn’t all that engaging. Combat is slow and boring and a barely palatable w/ the game’s responsiveness. Movement (non-travel power based) left me always feeling like my characters ran around w/ a load in their pants. Travel powers don’t transcend on the environments well. It’s just not finished.

It's like they couldn't decide ot make it like WoW, or to make it like CoH, or to make it like a console game. So they just went all willy-nilly making the whole thing a giant cluster-fuck of all three, and none of them gel. And has anyone even seen end game? I looked on the forums and saw nothing about it.

Overall, CO might be a fun game in a year after months of improvements... but I know I'm god damn sick of games that release w/ "potential" and paying for a piece of shit while I wait for it to reach that potential. You’re far better off playing CoH for a cheaper, better made, more engaging game.

Oh, and just to appease those that want to scream "troll" stuff - LOL@thinking this game is good enough for a sub & MT, let alone just a sub.

More comments here:
http://www.massively.com/2009/08/17/champions-online-nda-has-dropped/#continued

$5 says Ivan Sulic is planting some of those positive comments as part of his job as "MarCom"

[ManaByte]

This one is damning:

I tested this game over a span of several months and I will not be purchasing it for many, many reasons. I will be as fair as possible, though some of the repliers to other testers that don't like the game will surely knock it down.

* No servers.
BAD: You get 8 characers (or can BUY MORE). You're herded into shards that hold between 25-200 people at a time. It's VERY hard to find groups early on because early zones only let a small amount of people into it. Zoning itself takes a long time and doesn't feel fluid.
GOOD: One server = always being able to play with your friends...you just need to log out a lot and try to get into filled shards.


* Global names.
BAD: Guess what, people have your account name now. If you piss someone off they can always find you. You also get stuck with no longer having a character you can just play in secret for stress relief.
GOOD: No more trolls. Your reputation matters! No longer adding 800 (or...em... alts to your list.


* Character Creator
BAD: Faces look the same. There are sliders, but it doesn't do much. There's also a lot of character costume pieces but it's hard to navigate. There are textures missing that you can find in COX (detached sleaves, robes). Some hats only allow certain hairs. You can resize or rotate anything. Most of the moods and poses are, quite honestly, silly.
GOOD: Lots of choices. It's almost certain that you will not be looking like anyone else.


* Controls/UI
BAD: If you come from Warcraft you're going to be dumbfounded. Controls are hard to get use to. It's a game made for a control paddle...NOT for a mouse and keyboard. There are also keybindings that are not quite intuitive. Tooltips are still wonky. You can't move or resize or even addon to much of the UI.
GOOD: Um... It's colorful? Yay?


* Classes
BAD: You MUST take a defensive power. If you don't, you go splat. They could have made this a lot clearer. Trying to play a support character means you have to have lightning reflexes to flee, crowd control, or heal. If you don't, prepare yourself for tragedy.
GOOD: The blaster classes are fun but the custom framework doesn't really work all that well together since some powers are designed to only work well with some powers.


* Zones
BAD: Ugh. You can pick from an early crisis zone filled with floaty white shit or floaty green shit. It was hard for me to feel heroic in these settings. I didn't even get to a city right away. Immersion was bad. My winged character had to take a helicopter to her destination. I also didn't feel invested in the quests. I WANTED to care...but I couldn't bring myself to.
GOOD: Um... I don't know. I didn't find any of them really enjoyable.


* Final Thoughts
I did have a good time for almost two months with this Beta but I grew bored quickly. I continued to play right up until Friday's wipe...but I only stayed logged in for 20 minutes. It did not hold my attention...and it doesn't feel like an MMO. It's more like an arcade game. There were still bugs on Friday, bugs I'd been posting about for months...and I think it will release with these bugs.

Sigh. Oh well.

[etiolate]

I don't trust MMO fans reviews. MMOers, having been tortured by years of archaic gameplay choices, have lost all gaming sense.  Something like complaining about not being able to play MMO as a character that nobody knows so you can play your MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game completely alone without even digital interaction is one one example.

[ManaByte]

I don't trust MMO fans reviews. MMOers, having been tortured by years of archaic gameplay choices, have lost all gaming sense.  Something like complaining about not being able to play MMO as a character that nobody knows so you can play your MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game completely alone without even digital interaction is one one example.

Except in the case of Champions, it's from a developer with massive ego problems who made a MMO with massive content problems. Take those big egos and their inability to address the problems in their first game, and combine it with a MMO that was quickly tossed together into a PC game from a Xbox 360 exclusive (Champions was originally the X360 Marvel MMO before MS pulled the plug) and you have a total mess of a MMO.

[chronovore]

I don't trust MMO fans reviews. MMOers, having been tortured by years of archaic gameplay choices, have lost all gaming sense.  Something like complaining about not being able to play MMO as a character that nobody knows so you can play your MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game completely alone without even digital interaction is one one example.

Nice. Yeah, I'm wondering what the next big game will be that really eschews the whole legacy of gameplay baggage, leftovers from hack and slash level grinding. Surely there has to be something more compelling to be done online in groups while communicating.

[Eel O'Brian]

i was in the closed beta for this

admittedly i'm not an mmo fan at all, but i only played two sessions before i grew bored with it

the character customization is cool, i would buy a stand-alone character creator for $5 just to make stupid-looking dudes

[ManaByte]

i was in the closed beta for this

admittedly i'm not an mmo fan at all, but i only played two sessions before i grew bored with it

the character customization is cool, i would buy a stand-alone character creator for $5 just to make stupid-looking dudes

Same exact problem with CoH. Game was shit, character creation was awesome.

[Human Snorenado]

I don't trust MMO fans reviews. MMOers, having been tortured by years of archaic gameplay choices, have lost all gaming sense.  Something like complaining about not being able to play MMO as a character that nobody knows so you can play your MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game completely alone without even digital interaction is one one example.

Whoa whoa whoa... let's slow down here.  Since when did mmos have GAMEPLAY?  A glorified chat client with a pretty interface isn't a game, people.

[ManaByte]

Open beta started. You can get a key at Fileplanet.

Installing now to see how bad it is. Then uninstalling right afterwards.

[ManaByte]

The game is just City of Heroes, but it runs like total shit and is just as unfun as CoH.

Also the game FAILS for not allowing HATS during character creation. My Sergent Slaughter ended up looking like this:


I'm done with this. CoH stopped being fun a week after its release. Cryptic fails.

[ManaByte]

It's not even CoH2.

It's like CoH1.5 and dumbed down for consoles.

[OptimoPeach]

Another console MMORPG a failure?

News at 11.

Pretty much

[demi]

I'll get it for console. 

[ManaByte]

A guy I know is going to drop $200 for the lifetime sub.

He'll be pissed when the game shuts down next year. Cryptic got Flagshipped in more than one way.

[ManaByte]

I'll get it for console. 

MS is fucking over MMOs though. FFXIV, LOTRO, WAR, AOC, and this are all ready for 360 and can ship but MS won't allow them on Live.

[demi]

MS knows consoles dont deserve crappy MMOs. Leave that to distinguished mentally-challenged fellow PC gamers.

[OptimoPeach]

MS knows consoles dont deserve crappy MMOs. Leave that to distinguished mentally-challenged fellow PC gamers.

Pretty much

And ManaByte, FFXIV hasn't been confirmed for 360 yet

edit: nevermind, I can't read I get it now

[ManaByte]

MS knows consoles dont deserve crappy MMOs. Leave that to distinguished mentally-challenged fellow PC gamers.

Pretty much

And ManaByte, FFXIV hasn't been confirmed for 360 yet

That's not what Square said at Gamescom. They said it isn't on it yet due to MS not allowing MMOs on 360. The producer said they are working with MS to get it ironed out.

Link:  http://www.massively.com/2009/08/22/final-fantasy-xiv-release-for-360-hindered-by-xbox-live/

[ManaByte]

I'll get it for console. 

MS is fucking over MMOs though. FFXIV, LOTRO, WAR, AOC, and this are all ready for 360 and can ship but MS won't allow them on Live.

So You're telling me that all of those games are ready to launch on the 360 and Microsoft(the same Microsoft that allowed FFXI) wont let them get published?

Bullshit.

Hell, in that link you posted it doesn't say Microsoft explicitly said they can't do it, it just a conflict with Xbox Live's policy(and that could mean any number of things).

Turbine has been showing LOTRO for 360 to focus groups. One version was Free to Play.

Both WAR and AOC have been playable on 360s at E3.   

[ManaByte]

Also Champions started out on the 360 PUBLISHED by MS before they canned it. When that happened Cryptic removed all the Marvel artwork and assets and got a new license for it.

[chronovore]

Why doesn't MS want MMOs on Live? Was FFXI that much of a disaster?

[OptimoPeach]

I'll never understood the appeal of MMOs on consoles. Limited HDD space, no Vent, 2 subscription fees (one for XBL and one for the MMO), and gimped controls. Being able to tab out during those invariable stretches of downtime is always nice as well.

People apparently still play FFXI though.

[demi]

I dunno why people still relate XBL to a monthly fee. Its optional but not recommended.

[demi]

Also this thing spams your Facebook. Someone on my list is posting shit when they do a "perk" (achievement?). Over and over... I almost deleted the guy, but you can hide messages from that certain app.

[pilonv1]

I'll never understood the appeal of MMOs on consoles. Limited HDD space, no Vent, 2 subscription fees (one for XBL and one for the MMO), and gimped controls. Being able to tab out during those invariable stretches of downtime is always nice as well.

People apparently still play FFXI though.

The worst part I imagine would be the slower process for patching/updates. If you had a buggy release it would take weeks to get it through cert.

[OptimoPeach]

I dunno why people still relate XBL to a monthly fee. Its optional but not recommended.

Well yeah, but the point is that you're still paying 2 separate fees for one game. I mean, let's be honest, if you play an MMO on a regular basis that's basically all you play. The main reason I'm so unlearned about anything related to this generation of console gaming is because I wasted my life on WoW for 3 1/2 years

I'll never understood the appeal of MMOs on consoles. Limited HDD space, no Vent, 2 subscription fees (one for XBL and one for the MMO), and gimped controls. Being able to tab out during those invariable stretches of downtime is always nice as well.

People apparently still play FFXI though.

To play FFXI you only need to pay one sub subscription fee, which might be the issue with FF14.

edit: nevermind, I still can't read.

I'll never understood the appeal of MMOs on consoles. Limited HDD space, no Vent, 2 subscription fees (one for XBL and one for the MMO), and gimped controls. Being able to tab out during those invariable stretches of downtime is always nice as well.

People apparently still play FFXI though.

The worst part I imagine would be the slower process for patching/updates. If you had a buggy release it would take weeks to get it through cert.

Oh yeah, then there's that Out of curiosity, does anyone on EB play FFXI on console?

[demi]

I'm pretty sure DCharlie's wife does

[chronovore]

Also this thing spams your Facebook. Someone on my list is posting shit when they do a "perk" (achievement?). Over and over... I almost deleted the guy, but you can hide messages from that certain app.

If you like the guy, you should just let him know that it's annoying. I was happy that people let me know that the Booyah Society app was killing their joy (even before I started using it).

[Vizzys]

you could play ff11 on x360 without xbl gold

shitty game though

[recursivelyenumerable]

Most people who play FFXI on console still play it on PS2 anyway, at least in Japan.

[recursivelyenumerable]

Why doesn't MS want MMOs on Live? Was FFXI that much of a disaster?

It's not that MS doesn't want MMOs on Live, it's that MMO publishers (or at least Square Enix)  want their games to be the same across all platforms, so they don't want to have to change the Xbox version to accommodate the Live system and policies.

[pilonv1]

I'm pretty sure DCharlie's wife does

I thought Groo did too, he seems pretty gay for FFXIV on twitter. I wish he still posted here

[OptimoPeach]

Console MMORPGs could be a humongous fucking cash cow if done right. Hell, I am 100% sure the next non-WoW Blizzard MMORPG will be a PC/console game and it will achieve at least 50% of WoW subs on consoles.

Other companies that are currently trying to get in console MMORPG market which is a fucking desert BTW are just hoping for a quick cash grab. Their line of thinking is "There are 40M console players and no MMORPG for them. Let's throw some quick shit together and roll in money!"

When Blizzard steps in, everybody else will get fucked pretty badly. And I am 100% sure that MS would not only not make any obstacles for Blizz to join in but even pay them for doing so.

That's the thing, though, is doing it right. How many console MMOs have been announced and then scrapped 1-2 years later? Level-5, the Halo MMO, the Marvel MMO (yeah, also made by Cryptic, but still), and I'm sure there's a shitton more I'm forgetting. And even if MS weren't allegedly keeping MMOs off live, AoC's 360 port is already a full year behind schedule (or was as of a year ago); everybody's expecting for them to shit/bin that any day now, especially since they couldn't even get the PC version right

I guess if anyone can do it it will be Blizzard. I dunno if I'm just stubborn, though, or what, but I cannot make that transition from keyboard to controller.

[demi]

Maybe you're just an inferior being. Luckily you will be the first to go when evolution comes around. Nice knowing you.

[OptimoPeach]

It's all good, I can always just plug a keyboard and mouse into my 360

[ManaByte]

Console MMORPGs could be a humongous fucking cash cow if done right. Hell, I am 100% sure the next non-WoW Blizzard MMORPG will be a PC/console game and it will achieve at least 50% of WoW subs on consoles.

Other companies that are currently trying to get in console MMORPG market which is a fucking desert BTW are just hoping for a quick cash grab. Their line of thinking is "There are 40M console players and no MMORPG for them. Let's throw some quick shit together and roll in money!"

When Blizzard steps in, everybody else will get fucked pretty badly. And I am 100% sure that MS would not only not make any obstacles for Blizz to join in but even pay them for doing so.

That's the thing, though, is doing it right. How many console MMOs have been announced and then scrapped 1-2 years later? Level-5, the Halo MMO, the Marvel MMO (yeah, also made by Cryptic, but still), and I'm sure there's a shitton more I'm forgetting. And even if MS weren't allegedly keeping MMOs off live, AoC's 360 port is already a full year behind schedule (or was as of a year ago); everybody's expecting for them to shit/bin that any day now, especially since they couldn't even get the PC version right

I guess if anyone can do it it will be Blizzard. I dunno if I'm just stubborn, though, or what, but I cannot make that transition from keyboard to controller.

Most of those MMOs you mentioned were Microsoft projects. MS doesn't understand MMOs, which is why the Zoo Tycoon people are running the MMO side of MGS now :p

[ManaByte]

Cryptic "sold out" of the lifetime and six month subscription plans as soon as negative reviews came out. 

How the fuck do you sell out of subscriptions?

Hmm the game is being trashed, so they claim to be sold out of $200 subscriptions to build hype? On top of that, Ivan Sulic's "MarCom" department is posting "Too bad, so sad" asshole board posts in response to complaints.

This game is going to be a bigger failure than Hellgate. Fitting seeing as Cryptic hired most of the Hellgate team.

[pilonv1]

Cryptic probably budgeted for X amount of subscriptions. They obviously think that they'll get more standard subscriptions now which is foolish.

[ManaByte]

The game is DOA. As soon as people play the starting instance they'll uninstall. It's the worst newbue experience ever. Even EQ1s tutorial is better and that's sad.