There are very friendly people in this game, and many of them are RPers, too.
I have met some very friendly people in Champions Online.
I never see them. I never get to
play with them. I have a hard time
identifying them, and finding them to talk to even when I do.
You fight the Purple Gang up to level 10 or so. After that, in MC, you have the chance to fight Hi Pan's gang and the Maniacs. At 11, you can go to Canada or the Desert Crisis and fight different kinds of enemies. At level 19 or so, you can do the Queen City Arc which is the introduction to Vibora Bay (one of my favorite zones.)
You also have missions in MC in the 20s to fight Mind, Inc and a chance to fight in Dr. Destroyer's Factory.
In the mid 20s you can go to Monster Island and in the early 30s you have the option of visiting the underwater zone of Lemuria and then returning to Vibora Bay in a bid to save the earth from the Apocalypse.
There is plenty to do in Champions Online-- in my opinion.
Just so you don't get the wrong impression about me, I'm not some Johnny-come-lately to the game. I played a Glacier archetype and a Grimoire all the way to 40, only to delete them when I ran out of things to do that weren't more of the same.
I realize there's different villain groups and such, but no matter what character you play and what backstory you have,
you will always take one of a few similar paths through the game.
You will always fight the Qularr in the tutorial. You will always fight the Purple Gang from 6-10. You will always fight The Maniacs, the Red Dragons, Foxbat's Foxbattlebots, the Black Aces, and the Cobra Lords throughout the rest of the Westside storyline. You will always go through the Westside Storyline, in fact.
You're given a binary choice around 20 to go to either Canada or the Desert. It's always either one or the other, or both if you're feeling masochistic and don't mind running content beneath your level. Both of 'em will eventually send you back to Millenium City for the ARGENT/MIND Inc. arcs, and then you get sent
back to the Desert or Canada, or both, until you get your first taste of Vibora Bay with the Black Mask storyline. And then you can't go back until you get the Vibora Bay Apocalypse. Then there's Monster Island, and finally everyone winds up in Lemuria after a stint back in Millenium City.
That is, if you don't get sick of it all and just Alert your way to 40. Speaking of, Alerts spoiled the fact that Valerian Scarlet was actually a villain, which had me dreading the whole Vibora Bay apocalypse. I knew from the word 'go' that I was being had, and yet I had no choice but to go along with it, or miss out on content.
I hate to make the comparison to CoH, but in CoH I had the choice of three different tutorials, three different factions on my way to 20 (and two factions thereafter, not counting switching allegiance through morality mishes). Within Praetoria alone, there was four concurrent lines of contacts, two for each allegiance, with the option to switch allegiance several times during those storylines. The
depth of content available meant that I didn't have to play the same storylines with every character I made. Content in CO never really expands beyond two, maybe three concurrent storylines, where in CoH that was kinda the
minimum most of the time.
The biggest thing that bothers me about CO is how blatant the monetization is. I continually feel like I'm being dick-slapped in the face by CO's ever present desire for the contents of my wallet. There are reminders
everywhere. Little zen icons on all the locked-out archetypes in character creation. Zen icons on all the costume parts I'm not allowed to use unless I buy them (and the option to
not show them is something you have to check
every. single. time.) Zen store button built right into the minimap. Grayed-out bag slots with zen icons if you mouse over them. Oh, and those costumes in the tailor? If you mouse over them, you're told how to get them... except it only mentions the cash shop option,
even if there's a way to earn them in-game. CoH, even CoH Freedom, locked a lot of things behind a paywall, but they never had lockboxes cluttering up your inventory, giving you
over a hundred of them before you even hit level 30. CO not only gives into Perfect World's crazy Lockbox Extravaganza, but a lot of stuff worth having is sealed up tight in lockboxes. Vehicles? Lockboxes, or drifter salvage from Lockboxes. Costume parts? Lockboxes, or drifter salvage. Legion equipment? Lockboxes! Legacy devices and costume parts that
used to be craftable? Drifter salvage from
Lockboxes!CoH didn't offer quite the freedom that CO's freeform characters offer, and yes there were some archetypes and powersets behind the paywall, but even without them, you had a lot of choice in character creation. You could make a darkness-oriented character, for instance. Sure, he couldn't have Dark Control unless you paid for it, but he could have Dark Armor, Dark Melee, Dark Blast, or Dark Miasma. In CO, you wanna make a Dark character, you have to either subscribe, pay 50 bucks worth of zen for a freeform character slot, or pay 11 and a half bucks worth of zen to unlock The Void archetype. Even in the latter case, you don't get to customize its powers any. As a free player in CO, I have to shoehorn
all of the concepts I want to see portrayed into just ten archetypes (11 with the Alienware promo that unlocks the Devastator). And if I have a character that just won't fit those eleven archetypes? Tough luck, can't make it. Unless I'm willing to shell out real money to either subscribe (and get locked out later if my subscription lapses) or unlock it on a silver character through zen.
It's alleviated somewhat by the questionite system, but I
really don't have the kind of free time to farm the amount of questionite needed to unlock anything really worthwhile, like archetypes or freeform character slots. Y'know, the things that would
really alleviate my grief with this game. With zen going at a price of 205-207q currently, and only being able to refine 8000 questionite per character a day, with 2 character slots by default, that's just a bit less than half a month of questionite farming up to the limit each and every day to unlock an Archetype. To unlock a freeform slot, that's over
two months.
This is a
game that I play
for fun. Not an occupation. Not a
job. If it's fun to begin with, then I'm encouraged to spend money on it. That's why I subbed for CoH - even before Freedom, and the shift to hybrid subscription w/cash shop, the demo period of
just ten days floored me with the freedom offered to me, and so I happily said, "NCSoft,
take my money!" The only reason I even let my sub elapse was because my financial situation forced my hand (and even then, I kept it going far longer than I should have, because it was
that good.)
If CO is
not fun, then I'm not going to try and spend money to
make it fun. I'm going to find something that
is fun, and then spend money to
make it better, and support it.
Don't get me wrong. I
want to like CO. I really do. I enjoyed pen-and-paper Champions. I think some of the characters they have and their universe is fascinating. I find Grond oddly charming - he's like the Incredible Hulk crossed with Godzilla, only he has a personality. Foxbat is a riot, and it's always fun to smack him down. Destroyer is about as raving and lugubrious a villain as you could ask for, and watching him and Shadow Destroyer go at it at the end of Resistance was immensely cathartic (The dark, edgy, world-conquering New Destroyer gets put in his place by good ol' Destroyer Original-Formula.)
It's just that a lot of times it feels like it's doing everything in its power to make me hate it.