Pattern Ghost

Re: What sorta rig are you running?

I'm playing on an Athlon 64 3200, 4gigs RAM (3 used), geForce 8600GT. I get a whopping 6-20 fps.

Can't wait to get moved and commandeer my wife's dual core. Hopefully, it'll give me a few more frames. =)

(BTW, the command to see your fps in game is same as in CoH/V: type "showfps 1" in your chat, sans quotes.)

Re: List Your CO Heroes!

OK. I caved in and got it. I'm going to put my video card in my wife's PC and we're going to share that one for gaming, after we get done moving to the new apartment. So, I won't be on much until later in the month, just creating some characters most likely.

I am @PatternGhost:

Geist: Munitions. Going to mix in some MA and some Power Armor. Inspired by Ghost in the Shell.

Blue Comet: Out of retirement, golden age cosmic-y type. Custom Framework w/Might builder and Force attack.

Greyhound: Speedster. Took Single Blade, hoping there's a billy club style replacer for it somewhere.

Krusher McGee: Might. Maxed most body sliders. Minimized head size slider. A hero worthy of Liefield. (Ok, the game won't let you make anything quite as bad as a Liefield.)

I'll probably make something from Sorcery next. Haven't got a particular character in mind though.

Re: Things you've noticed

I liked the Foxbat mission in the starting area. When i heard his griping at first, I thought it was just another stranded citizen, until it annoyed me enough to go over and take a look.

Re: Screenshots

A few shots of my last character. I thought I'd taken screens of earlier characters, but maybe they were deleted after a patch, or I was just imagining it.

First is a pic of the "milk mustache" that most of the characters seem to have. This is one of my complaints with the lighting: There's no reason that area of the lips should be reflecting a lot of light.

Next are some pics of Geist. She's a gun slinger/martial artist in a hard suit (not power armor per se, just armor with some tech in it, like sensors, comm, stealth (invis/camo), etc.). One of these shows that James Harmon is clearly a "brilliant" inventor. (That glow is only when he's standing there waiting to be interacted with, so probably not an actual lighting issue. I just thought it was funny.)

Re: End of beta thoughts.

I played the very last few minutes of the beta, before they took the server offline.

I'll say that the graphics issues regarding weird lighting seemed to be much improved. On the other hand, there was massive clipping through the map in the Project Greenskin area. Hopefully they'll fix that back up in an early patch.

Re: Not good enough

I believe the look of the game is meant to be completely different from COH, and thus has embraced the artificial look on purpose. The characters do look "rubbery", and artificial. But, you can collect action figures in the game, and I suspect that this is in line with what the developers at Cryptic are going for with this MMO.

I think the whole "rubbery" thing is simply due to the default costume texture on most pieces being set to leather. Cloth doesn't look rubbery to me. Just remember to set the costume texture if that bothers you.

That said, I was able to make a dark hero rather easily. He didn't look rubbery after I got through with him. The character designer blows away any designer, in any game, including COH. The choices are staggering. You are able to do everything that you could do in COH, and so much more. You can even split up your design decisions to a particular side of your character's body. The character creator is deep.

The creator itself is nice.

You can alter your character's power colors, and where they emit from on the fly inside the game, not just once from the character generator.

That's a nice touch. Not having to pay for a respec to tweak those settings is thoughtful, and hopefully will be that way for release as well.

You have actual stats to track, like Ego, Dex, etc., and many different character builds that give you differing bonuses. There is even an average build, that is good at everything.

Having numbers to play with is always nice. I think that was something they didn't think was important to players when they did CoH. If you recall, at release you couldn't see any of your actual numbers for enhancements. Putting those in the UI came a while later.

You actually choose your own powers, although I didn't make it out of the starting location. .. [snippage to save space]

 

It's a really innovative system, and works to perfection. The way powers work in unison with each other, even when they are completely different types is awesome.

Looking at the power sets, I think there are strong incentives to specialize despite the flexibility. The system does have some potential for making interesting builds that are still effective while letting you play with different character concepts.

You can also attempt to block in combat, which helps out squishy builds.

One of the nice things is that you can also buy defensive powers that are improved versions of the block, in addition to the usual kinds. Gives some flavor to the basic block.

I was able to make something akin to a City of Heroes blaster. However, he was much stronger in melee combat than a COH character, which is a good thing. No more one shots, or running from minions at low levels. I did have to be careful, though, as it wasn't easy to take on lieutenants and bosses once they were in melee range.

Blasters in CoH have always been beasts up close. One difference in CO and CoH is that you will run into critters that will hold or mez you right out of the gate, and they will hurt your squishy a lot more than anything at low level in CoH will. You will learn to mash the Z button early on. Which is actually good. They teach you all the core concepts and let you practice them right out of the gate. I think that probably helps the learning curve.

I was blown away, and honestly I am seriously considering the lifetime special offer. This is my favorite MMO, and I have never played one that has blown me away from start to finish the first time I tried it, like this one.

I want to like it. I'm glad you're liking it.

I can't agree with you about the animations, as I thought they were very well done. The combat system and it's various effects are much more engrossing than City of Heroes.

As I said earlier, the game is a CPU hog, and that's the major weakness of my computer. It's very possible that the "bad" animations are simply something the game does to save on CPU time that isn't reflected in the in game settings. Maybe it just automagically kicks down the animation quality on slower CPUs? I did allow that most (if not all) of my qualms may be solveable on a higher end system. My Mac would probably play it decently, though the video card is slightly weaker than my PC, it's got a dual core that's much faster. But I'm not going to invest in Windows for my Mac right now, b/c Win 7 is going to cost an arm and a leg when it releases, and I'm short on extra limbs at the moment.

I don't know about the lighting, but I can't say that I ever thought...wow that that lighting looks crappy. I didn't pay attention to it, and it didn't make me notice it.

That's good to know. Do you see the detail on characters' faces (NPCS and PCs both) without excessive light shine/reflection on them on your system? If yes, then it gives me hope that it's just a system thing. Either a dislike for my particular GPU or a consequence on running it on a slow PC.

But, graphics aren't what I care about. I care about the details, and Champions Online has more details than any other MMO I've played.

I really would like to play through it to see all the content, as I said earlier. I'm with you on that part. The content looks very entertaining, and the world worth exploring.

You should do yourself a favor, and try the game out. Everyone is different, and I wouldn't say that you should buy a new computer just to play it. But, I think it's an amazing experience, and I would buy a new computer to play it.

I've been in since near the end of the open beta, when they let in the 10,000 for that online magazine promotion. I wouldn't have to buy a new computer, just a copy of Windows for my Mac, but I can't justify spending that much to play one game right now. I may just get it for the 360. The game will have matured by then, so I can get to hear even more real players' reports like yours. I'm sure I'll be itching for it by time it hits the 360.

I snipped the rest, but appreciate the sentiment. I think it's going to be a solid game. It's going to lose a few customers like me who just can't justify dropping cash into upgrades right now, but I think it may pull in a lot more if it can get the 360 or another console release out sometime later this year, or early next. I think they probably have a winner on their hands, no argument there. My own preferences and limitations are just that. Not an indictment of the game. Sorry if my earlier post sounded like I was trying to be a wet blanket. (I don't have to try, it comes naturally!)

Re: Difference between games?

I am extremely disappointed with the game, as I do not feel it captured neither the mechanics nor the spirit of the game I love so much.

 

taodon

I don't like it for other reasons, but dinging it for not using the PnP mechanics is a bit unrealistic.

Re: Not good enough

OK, now that the NDA has lifted, I can say a few things I've noticed about the game:

1. It is a massive CPU hog. I think a CPU upgrade will be more beneficial, provided you already have 2-3 GB of RAM.

2. The graphics suck when you turn them back. Even at the default level, which my machine will run, the game doesn't look that great.

3. The graphic design for PCs and character animations suck. None of the character faces looks human. They'd have been better off using several base heads instead of one. The character skeletons are articulated badly, with the female being the worst offender. The animations in general are bad. Lighting is way overdone, even if you turn down the lighting options. They also seem to pick the wrong damned part of a character or object to reflect light off of much of the time, especially in regards to characters' faces.

4. If you're looking for game play innovations and you've been playing MMOs for a few years, you won't find many. Public mission execution is much less satisfying than in WAR.

On the plus side, the world feels much deeper than that of CoH/V, and I think they've used the license very well, and in a manner that will satisfy a lot of Champions PnP fans.

Overall, if you don't mind the graphics, the animations and the terrible lighting (and you might not if you have a higher end system, because those problems may not exist, or at least be lessened then), then the game looks fun. It's not groundbreaking stuff, but I'd at least try to get to level cap with a character and make an alt or two, just to see the storyline stuff and explore the world, if I wasn't put off so much by the graphics.

I really want to like this game, but I'll have to see if they get their act together on the graphics engine (I could live with the character models if they got their act together on the lighting), and see how it looks on a 360. I don't think it's in a state that will satisfy me at release, but I do believe the developers are continuing to refine the game and will continue to improve it after release.

In the meantime, I'll putter around Middle Earth sight-seeing in LOTRO. It's not half bad, and runs well on my system.

Re: Any plans for a HERO Players Superteam once game is released?

If the Xbox players are on a different server from the PC players, will there be two Hero supergroups?

Re: Lifetime Subscription

So in practical terms.. so long as the game lasts 14 months the lifetime sub comes out ahead.

Or 21 months at the $10/month price, which is the 6 months for $60 that's the other pre-order offer.

Re: Female/Male Super-Forms

As to the option of the back up character if this one didn't work out... why? If it doesn't work out, you could always have him transform into a male Golden Age hero, and the awkwardness is solved while maintaining all the good story hooks that the original concept has.

Re: Not good enough

I'd advise to wait until near the end of the Open Beta and check again. Typically, fine tuning for performance will go on up to the last minute. Not that it always works. WAR had some performance issues it was ironing out, but still hadn't fixed a month+ after launch. But typically graphics tweaking is ongoing during beta.

Also, check your PMs LM.

Re: Mutants and Masterminds: Why did you stay/come back?

The hero point system in M&M is a step forwards in terms of genre emulation, imo. In comic books the protagonists are forvever pulling new powers out of their @$$es then forgetting about them next month.

Then again, FASERIP Marvel had a system for that in the 80s. One step forward and two steps back?

I do like the MnM implementation, though.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #2: New Combat Maneuvers; Objects As Weapons

Probably never, for several reasons:

 

1. It would be incredibly dull to write.

 

2. Unlike many of our Ultimate and Genre books, it would have little to no appeal to people who aren't hard-core Hero players.

 

3. The average gamer, even the average Hero gamer, IMO is not likely to buy a book about ways to hinder and weaken his character. Even assuming that 6E's general tack of "Complications are fun things that make your character more interesting to play" is wholeheartedly embraced by Hero gamers everywhere, I don't see this changing. If I thought the book would sell really really really well I could overcome the dullness of writing it, but I don't even think it would sell well.

 

At this point, I think the most likely way I'd end up writing a book is if my obsessive-compulsive desire to "catalog" things somehow got enough of a hold on me to make me write it in my spare time. Not likely, but I suppose it's possible.

So, I take it this means there will be a little less encouragement by the system to heap on a large number of Complications?

Daeke has posted the Electric power framework, and is working on adding more sets to the site in the near future. Looks interesting. I think it helps give a bit more insight as to how the power system works.

http://www.champions-online.com/node/105586

Re: No presence at San Diego Comic Con?

I was asking if you were ignorant, not saying you were.

Then again, if you can't support your arguments, have a nice day.

Edit:

And you know, I probably should have apologized for the poor choice of words, and corrected it to "Maybe I was being unclear..." which is more along the lines that I meant, but your condescending tone doesn't rate an apology.

Re: No presence at San Diego Comic Con?

Yeah. You're not following me. I'm not talking about Blizzard or DC here. I'm talking average for the industry. You don't play many MMOs or follow their development, do you?

Cryptic is taking a very low key approach compared to most MMOs, or heck, most video games. The good thing about this is that they aren't making promises they can't keep for the most part. That means they won't be dinged for failing to live up to the hype.

The bad part is, there are still a LOT of people who don't see how they've differentiated CO from CoH or WoW. They have a lot of interesting innovations in game, and they're keeping a lot of the great innovations from CoH, but they may not be doing enough to make people aware of them. By this stage in a game's development, there's usually a lot more info available on how the game plays.

All I'm saying is that they're playing it a little close to the chest. I expect a pretty huge info dump coming up as release nears. For example, one of the community managers is putting out detailed info on the power sets soon, just having gotten documentation from the devs.

Anyway, it's not a criticism of their approach, per se. I'm curious to see how the low-hype promotion works vs. the norm.

Re: No presence at San Diego Comic Con?

Still, low hype campaign for an MMO. Extremely low hype.

Re: No presence at San Diego Comic Con?

Did the stairway make any grandiose claims about gameplay?

Re: Costs of Champions

Cryptic hasn't released those numbers yet, but we can speculate.

Most MMOs have a base cost of about $40-50 for the game itself, and a monthly fee of $14.95, with various discount steps for buying more than one month at a time. After the game matures a bit, the price for the base game sometimes goes down. Expansion packs are usually a step down in price from the original game, and typically include the core game and any prior expansions, either as an option or as part of the price. I'm going to guess it'll be $39.99 for the PC and $49.99 for the 360 on release, with a base monthly of $14.99.* Most MMOs offer the first 30 days free. Even if they ask for billing info, you won't be billed until the 30 day trial period is up. Champs Online seems to be doing this as well.

For example, World of Warcraft has been out for five years, and is in its second expansion pack. The price for the "battle chest" that includes the base game and both expansions is $39.99 (less on Amazon), and the monthly subscription is still based on $14.99/month, which steps down to $13.99/mo. for three months, $12.99/mo. for six months.

Lord of the Rings Online is currently on its second expansion, and the combo with the original and both expansions is $19.99. (The game originally was $39.99 on release, I think.) However, I just got a special that was $9.99 for the game and expansions, and down to $10/month for a three month subscription. The base price per month is $14.99 going one month at a time. LOTRO also offers discounts for a year sub and for a lifetime sub. Lifetime subs are generally $299.99 and sometimes go on sale for $199.99, which is a heck of a deal if you plan to play for a few years.

*And this guess would be wrong: http://www.amazon.com/Champions-Online-Pc/dp/B0024FA6EY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1248722481&sr=1-1

Looks like the game itself will be $49.99 MSRP for the PC.

Re: No presence at San Diego Comic Con?

They seem to be taking a very low-hype approach to the marketing of the game. I hope not too low.

Re: In game art for the NPC's

Yeah, the giant D-bot looks to be part of a mission. There's some play footage of it in one of the videos, I think the Lairs one.

Re: Altered POO

I had an Altered Vector after eating some Mexican(ish) food last night.

Re: Bloody?

 

It's like tapping a coconut with a hammer. The first many hits don't do any really visible damage, but suddenly, one hit no harder than the previous cracks the shell. Or a single hard hit will smash the coconut where many milder hits won't do much damage.

 

- Klaus

Wait... you're telling me you're not supposed to eat the shell???

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #4: Deflection, Reflection, And Range

 

My issue is having it be a default setting rather than an option.

Looking at 4th and 5th, it seems to me that the defaults lean toward the super heroic or cinematic, rather than the realistic. In this context, it's consistent with the rest of the rules for it to be the default. Adding complexity and layering in "realism" tend to go together under the current system.

I do think that there should be, at least by way of an example, a very clear alternate case for more realistic campaigns.