I'm trying to answer whether late CoH--as designed--was a true MMORPG or not for "most players, most of the time." Almost any "MMORPG" out there can be played "right" according to the genre, but most games either begin or degrade into something "not-MMORPG." I'm not attacking whether or not CoH was or can be successful in any other sense. So here goes:
Overall score: Probably (Time distortion!->No)-> Yeah? But then, I really don't see many true MMORPG's out on the market these days. (Compare with early EQ and early-mid DDO).
EDIT: Just realized I did not clearly include early CoH as a true MMORPG: It was... the truest and best, in fact!
Massively? Players: Yes. Content: Maybe.
IMHO, Paragon/NCSOFT began obsoleting more key content with each update than they introduced--especially with the way they implemented and managed AE. (Should we accept this as an industry convention established by EQ's, WoW, etc.) Having tons of content that isn't worth playing anymore doesn't count as massive content...
Multiplayer (Grouping)? Mostly.
Less so than earlier CoH. Similar to the horrid industry convention following WoW, CoH suffered some 'solofication' via super enhancements and inspirations.
Online? Yes.
Retains the charm, flavor, and unpredictability of lag--I really do believe those are essential elements! The magic of grouping happens when things DON'T go as planned.
ROLEplaying? NO!
Went from 4 combat roles (tank, healer, dps, controller), to 1.5 (a weak dps tank + random dps) for vast majority of grouping. Not even the justly maligned 'holy trinity.'
RolePLAYing? Maybe.
Best core community in the industry. Best emotes in the industry. Best class & costume customization in the industry. Again, this is something Paragon/NCSOFT hurt. Much of the special-ness faded with free-to-play and the pay-to-customize marketplace.
Game? Maybe.
As opposed to just a time-sink--a particularly grindy time-sink... Original CoH was a true MMORPG with fun but serious team & tactical challenge. It had both light and heavy hearted lore/story arcs. Playing smart mattered. All in all, people had to grow intellectually, socially, and coordination-wise in order to play long-term. That's what makes a 'game' to me: a fun way to grow, stay sharp, and stay connected. The fact that CoH seemed to have the SLOWEST LEVELING in the universe didn't make it grindy at all. But introduce the crafting and AE: now I HAVE to spend boring time crafting by myself to stay relevant, and since everyone is just running XP grinds in AE, I HAVE to grind xp with no social interaction to continue playing the game.
Happy to hear some critique of my critique! (And, oh, Lord! Don't get me started on what constitutes a "sport").
Quote from: ICKool on September 08, 2015, 05:13:52 PM
ROLEplaying? NO!
Went from 4 combat roles (tank, healer, dps, controller), to 1.5 (a weak dps tank + random dps) for vast majority of grouping. Not even the justly maligned 'holy trinity.'
Are you sure you were playing the same game the rest of us were? Maybe stay out of atlas park on freedom if the game comes back.
I'm not impressed but reluctant to give a thorough critique without context of what this actually is and what it might be for.
Quote from: Castegyre on September 08, 2015, 06:43:34 PM
I'm not impressed but reluctant to give a thorough critique without context of what this actually is and what it might be for.
I'm not trying to bait or trick anyone into anything. I have an opinion about mmorpg's, the industry, and how coh fit into that landscape. If no one in the community gives a rip, that's fine. If I didn't properly present my ideas, that's ok too. If I'm factually wrong on one or more points (and you care), call me out. Whether or not CoH is a true MMORPG doesn't mean it wasn't/can't be a successful financial venture. I suppose my referring to "mistakes" (in the context of MMORPG's) on NCSOFT and Paragon's part could "stir the pot" unnecessarily. But really...
It's all just pixels to be soon forgotten.
Quote from: Vee on September 08, 2015, 06:14:23 PM
Are you sure you were playing the same game the rest of us were? Maybe stay out of atlas park on freedom if the game comes back.
Glad to see my experience wasn't universal. I guess I was referring to what "seemed" like the majority of gameplay for a majority of players. If that experience was only in low-level zones on free servers, I suppose I could concede your point. It's true, I did not play a lot of high level content in the waning years, though I tried to dive back in (sub'd) several times.
City of Heroes is an MMORPG based on the well-established definition. Luckily, everything you wrote after "whether ... CoH ... was a true MMORPG" was superfluous, since it was mostly unintelligible.
Quote from: chuckv3 on September 08, 2015, 09:32:44 PM
City of Heroes is an MMORPG based on the well-established definition.
Feel free to expand on who, what, and when.
Quote from: ICKool on September 08, 2015, 05:13:52 PM
(And, oh, Lord! Don't get me started on what constitutes a "sport").
Well it certainly ain't golf or chess or that redickulous spelling bee.
Quote from: ICKool on September 08, 2015, 10:00:50 PM
Feel free to expand on who, what, and when.
"Bunches of people playing roles in a static online game world" is basically the definition of MMORPG. City of Heroes fits that to a "T".
The fact that you put stipulations and restrictions on that doesn't change City from being an MMORPG.
Quote from: GenericHero05 on September 08, 2015, 10:22:34 PM
Well it certainly ain't golf or chess or that redickulous spelling bee.
OMGROFL! GenericHero05, you are my... eh... hero.
Quote from: Aggelakis on September 08, 2015, 10:36:11 PM
"Bunches of people playing roles in a static online game world" is basically the definition of MMORPG.
I think that's 'persistent,' not 'static.' Wikipedia seems to have a decent treatment of the topic: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game
Quote from: ICKool on September 08, 2015, 10:00:50 PM
Feel free to expand on who, what, and when.
Gladly! I would just be cutting and pasting (or paraphrasing) what has already been done so well elsewhere, so I'll just link instead.
First, MMORPG already has a well-established meaning. You will probably find some of your own assertions in disagreement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game#Common_features
Second, your use of "real" as a modifier in front of MMORPG hints at the "No True Scotsman" argumentative fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
In other words, you seem to want your own definition of MMORPG just so you can exclude CoH from it. No thanks!
Quote from: ICKool on September 08, 2015, 11:09:48 PM
I think that's 'persistent,' not 'static.' Wikipedia seems to have a decent treatment of the topic: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game
Now you're arguing semantics. ;) I used the wrong word but you knew the intent anyway.
Quote from: ICKool on September 08, 2015, 05:13:52 PM
Overall score: Probably No. But then, I really don't see many true MMORPG's out on the market these days.
I believe you have fallen prey to the well-known "no true MMORPG" logical fallacy ;D
I started to write out a long point by point response but decided against it. I feel it would be too aggressive and flame-baity to do this discussion justice. One note, though; Not one mention of Cryptic, any of the actual history of the game, the specifics about the changes it went through or how the devs and community responded to them, or how they fit into the evolution of the genre as a whole. I disagree with almost every point here, but I think this might be telling enough as to why.
Sometimes you hug a teddy bear but it turns out to be a hornets nest. ;)
I said wikipedia was decent in hopes of moving things into the realm of discussion. I think I said there actually were true MMORPG's on the market at one time (including CoH). I contend that the financial successes of WoW and DDO (first major F2P model???), took mmorpg developers down some ambiguously dark and evil paths.
I ain't the one that chose the adverb 'Massively' to modify the adjectives 'Multiplayer,' 'Online' and/or 'Roleplaying', which in turn modify the noun 'Game.' I'm just asking for the adverb 'Meaningfully'... otherwise, you just end up with a second-rate solo RPG that is online so that you see bunches of other players doing the same thing. >:(
Is that so wrong?
Castegyre, I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your almost-post. Really wish you would go ahead and post it (ooo, or message me? I'll sign an NDA)!
Massive? Check, by any standard other than the WoW standard (which is an outlier and should be discounted anyway)
Multiplayer? Check. The force multiplier effect strongly encourages casual team play, as does (super) sidekicking. Soloing as effectively requires high-end builds and degenerate tactics. Why should I bother IOing to the gills when I can get a few friends on SO'd defenders and controllers and we steamroll everything without even trying?
Online? Check. It's teh Internetz.
Roleplaying? Check. Strong bias towards creative character designs, moreso than most games where loot determines appearance. Space to write a background story. Atmosphere conducive to non-combat activities likes social gatherings, costume contests, showing off Supergroup bases, etc. You seem to be confusing this term with team roles, but that's not what it means. Go look up D&D.
Game? Check. You do tasks to get rewards.
Paydirt, Codewalker!
Massive(ly): Ok. Massive has referred to both number of players and size of the virtual world, but most MMORP-like-G's have a habit of obsoleting more prior content with successive updates than they introduce. I maintain CoH was headed down that road, but I don't suggest it wasn't still massive.
Multiplayer: Ok. I suppose with the right community and a wary eye on solo-ability...
Online: Ok. You're thinking technically, not existentially? This is much more essential than technicians realize.
Roleplaying: Ok. Happy to concede the point regarding ROLEplay vs. rolePLAY because you roll my concern regarding combat roles under Multiplayer. I played AD&D and on... even though we didn't have the parlance, it was still generally tank, healer, rogue, and dps... maybe even a notion of crowd control? But the focus was still on rolePLAY: not sure exactly where you wanted me to end up with that. All I know is that there has always been both meanings of RolePlay in pnp, video-rpg's, and early MMORPG's (unless you include SecondLife as a MMORPG...) :P
Game: Yeah, it's a pet peeve of mine. You just mean diversion.
I'll upgrade my overall score to Probably, probably.
I will mention one thing you may not have been aware of - CoH came out BEFORE WoW.
The EQ trinity was not really replicated as such and as the game moved forward they tried very hard not to have any one way of playing the game.
I finished most of the TF's on all Controller, Blaster, Defender, Corrupter, Stalker, Scrapper teams. The reason why many of us want the game back is we aren't MMORPG players we are City of Heroes players. I have tried other games and they are static as hell, boring and predictable. There is no personality to the other games.
City of Heroes morphed into something it was not originally meant to be. The game became almost emtirely a player creation with direction from the Devs. Our form of gameplay was in stark contrast to what they expected.
Regarding Item 1 and Obsoleting of content. I don't recall much obsolete content. The original sewer trial
seems to be the only thing that fits. With set IOs, the marginally-useful hydra-o's became irrelevant. Other
than for badging, it was more trouble than it was worth.
Quote from: jjmgreen on September 09, 2015, 03:40:03 PM
With set IOs, the marginally-useful hydra-o's became irrelevant.
Titan-O's from the Eden Trial would also fit here.
Yes.
Why is soloability listed as a negative?
Quote from: ICKool on September 08, 2015, 05:13:52 PM
ROLEplaying? NO!
Went from 4 combat roles (tank, healer, dps, controller), to 1.5 (a weak dps tank + random dps) for vast majority of grouping. Not even the justly maligned 'holy trinity.'
RolePLAYing? Maybe.
Best core community in the industry. Best emotes in the industry. Best class & costume customization in the industry. Again, this is something Paragon/NCSOFT hurt. Much of the special-ness faded with free-to-play and the pay-to-customize marketplace.
That word. You keep using it, but i feel you've taken the Humpty Dumpty approach to it, and i vastly prefer the definition used by most other Scotsmen.
The rest of your post was mostly more like that: redefining words and terms to suit whatever you wanted them to mean. Sort of silly, but the minutes spent trying to puzzle out your logic were fairly fun, so that was nice.
Quote from: Nyx Nought Nothing on September 10, 2015, 02:49:43 AM
...but the minutes spent trying to puzzle out your logic were fairly fun, so that was nice...
A victory for all! But I'm still hoping for a thoughtful, open-door-knocking, glass-ceiling shattering type of post!
Quote from: Golden Girl on September 09, 2015, 08:16:09 PM
Why is soloability listed as a negative?
Because it
usually degrades the multiplayer (and hence social) aspects into insignificance for all but the hardest-core, long-established, community members--something like a dwindling old growth forest.
Quote from: ICKool on September 10, 2015, 08:04:09 PM
Because it usually degrades the multiplayer (and hence social) aspects into insignificance for all but the hardest-core, long-established, community members--something like a dwindling old growth forest.
City had some of the best mechanisms for maintaining social elements regardless of activity of all the MMOs I've played. The global friends list that worked regardless of server, the ability to send and receive tells regardless of server or faction, global channels (of which you could have a GREAT MANY), highly customizable chat interface (multiple windows with multiple tabs, if you desired).
I frequently played solo, but remained in constant contact with many people all during.
When compared to it's predecessors like EQ and DAoC, CoH was always a solo friendly game. It was still a solo friendly game when compared to later games like EQ2 and even early WoW. As time progressed and the genre changed, CoH pretty much kept pace with being very solo friendly. I don't know what else you would call a game where fire blasters could solo GMs other than solo friendly.
When you did group in CoH you were also not compelled to stick to a rigid group makeup for most things like you were in other games. Everything was much more flexible. Sidekicking, account handles, the chat system, the eventual note system, etc, allowed CoH to be and remain social while still being solo friendly. That was one of the things a lot of us who had previous MMO experience loved about the game and miss about it now. That's why some of us kept coming back even as new stuff came out.
Quote from: ICKool on September 08, 2015, 05:13:52 PM
ROLEplaying? NO!
Went from 4 combat roles (tank, healer, dps, controller), to 1.5 (a weak dps tank + random dps) for vast majority of grouping. Not even the justly maligned 'holy trinity.'
RolePLAYing? Maybe.
Best core community in the industry. Best emotes in the industry. Best class & costume customization in the industry. Again, this is something Paragon/NCSOFT hurt. Much of the special-ness faded with free-to-play and the pay-to-customize marketplace.
I'll go ahead and reply to the first part. I'd say there were "roles" in teams, but they were not the way you'd think. They certainly did not cater towards the tank/healer/dps and that was a good thing, because in reality, a true roleplaying game doesn't force you to use the same solution in every single scenario like many mmorpgs(which should be called mmohtg's). It was often just fun to take two different powersets on an archtype and see how you could make it work. In a sense, city of heroes was a true super hero rpg, and an mmo to boot. Want a teleporting invisible woman? Take force fields, energy blast, teleport, done. Want a cosmic being? Could go with something like fire blast and time manipulation. Robot/dark magic master like say Dr. Doom? Ok robotics/dark miasma mastermind.
It was a game that let you really experiment with all kinds of concepts whatever inspired them. Other games frequently fail that and mmorpgs are an especially bad offender about that.
And because of that first point, in many ways it also helped actual roleplaying. One could get involved with a plot that encouraged them to get creative with their abilities and if you had a really good GM you'd see very creative solutions to the plots. And because city of heroes wasn't overly campy like it's main competitor was, the diversity of roleplayers was also far healthier.
In CO you had things like "Oh sorry, your not magic so you suck" or "Magic always beats tech, noob" in CO's rp community, which to me was an atrocity in of itself. Or perhaps the dumbest; perfect morals mary sues. CO's very story writing encouraged that kind of annoyance.
And it also caused me to encounter many runaway plots and/or dragging plots. It killed my will to rp there. But in CoX plots moved forward, and there was a diversity of them. Heck, i'm seeing that diversity on the rise already with paragon chat, people are coming up with both magic and tech themed plots, and I'm finding my mains involved in both types(even tech-themed character involved in magic plot and coming up with ideas!). Because city of heroes overall ENCOURAGED diversity above all, which a true rpg does. A bad rpg only discourages it, and mmorpgs apparently get "balanced"(as in, less balanced and in a pandering way) in ways that further discourages it. Because they are not rpgs, just action games in disguise that pigeon hole you into doing very, very specific things as if it's a job.
Been thinking. Which is what I do, though not necessarily well. ;D And it seems to me that my "MMORPG" hang-up is indeed superfluous, but only because it misses the main point. Any MMORPG not spelled with an invisible C sucks:
Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game & Community.
Quote from: jjmgreen on September 09, 2015, 03:40:03 PM
Regarding Item 1 and Obsoleting of content. I don't recall much obsolete content.
Great comment. I think my main concern was/is with AE. AE became a "Tower of BaPLe," which meant a lot of the story arcs and missions became "obsolete." But the real problem, I now see, was that it degraded the community aspect of the game, particularly for new players.
Quote from: Void Huntress on September 12, 2015, 02:22:11 AM
City had some of the best mechanisms for maintaining social elements regardless of activity of all the MMOs I've played.
Quote from: Castegyre on September 12, 2015, 05:30:31 AM
Sidekicking, account handles, the chat system, the eventual note system, etc, allowed CoH to be and remain social while still being solo friendly. That was one of the things a lot of us who had previous MMO experience loved about the game and miss about it now. That's why some of us kept coming back even as new stuff came out.
Yes! And I think any point I've tried to make pales in comparison. I would submit that the instancing, pacing of action, downtime (mainly between missions), and the group finder (paired with travel powers) were also extremely important for community/socializing: Not just acquiring new random players, but drawing them into the "community." Because it was a community of personal stories that invited uniqueness...
Quote from: LaughingAlex on September 12, 2015, 08:34:09 AM
Because city of heroes overall ENCOURAGED diversity above all, which a true rpg does. A bad rpg only discourages it, and mmorpgs apparently get "balanced"(as in, less balanced and in a pandering way) in ways that further discourages it. Because they are not rpgs, just action games in disguise that pigeon hole you into doing very, very specific things as if it's a job.
I obviously couldn't have said it better myself! (In other games, you're not really part of the community until you are level capped with only one or two community approved builds, geared in only one or two community approved sets of gear.)
Yeah, I think we're really developing something here.
I was a new player in the last year of the game. I think I tried AE once and moved on. When I play new games I'd much rather go through the story than just gain levels. I mean the only power I had to have was flight and that came quickly. I just don't see why a new player would do anything but go through the story lines. Wouldn't AE be for players who had a already been there and done that with the main missions?
I played on the villain side and usually with a friend who introduced me to the game.
Quote from: Kassandros on September 14, 2015, 06:57:10 AM
I was a new player in the last year of the game. I think I tried AE once and moved on. When I play new games I'd much rather go through the story than just gain levels. I mean the only power I had to have was flight and that came quickly. I just don't see why a new player would do anything but go through the story lines. Wouldn't AE be for players who had a already been there and done that with the main missions?
I played on the villain side and usually with a friend who introduced me to the game.
I played from 2004 till shutdown and never once did AE. I considered it cheating. I always enjoyed the journey to 50 and would feel kind of sad when I would reach it. This great game would then allow me to create a new hero with completely different powers and start again.
Quote from: GenericHero05 on September 14, 2015, 02:24:28 PM
I played from 2004 till shutdown and never once did AE. I considered it cheating. I always enjoyed the journey to 50 and would feel kind of sad when I would reach it. This great game would then allow me to create a new hero with completely different powers and start again.
I tended to avoid AE for the most part myself. I would sometimes help others level up, but I've never been much of one for grinding when I could quest or PLing my own characters. I did try some of the story arcs other players made, though, and some of them were pretty good considering how limited AE was. I can only imagine how much better some of the stories would have been to play through if the creators had access to something more advanced like the NW system. It wasn't all bad. Just mostly bad. :P
Quote from: GenericHero05 on September 14, 2015, 02:24:28 PM
I played from 2004 till shutdown and never once did AE. I considered it cheating. I always enjoyed the journey to 50 and would feel kind of sad when I would reach it. This great game would then allow me to create a new hero with completely different powers and start again.
I did AE and farming runs only after I had like 4 or 5 50's. After a while it got tedious doing all the low level stuff over and over and over.
Mostly I would use them to get a new toon to like 22 or 25. Then from there do stories and missions and whatever. Since the mid content and TF's were pretty good.
I did AE, but mostly just to check out cool stories there. It was certainly possible to disable earning XP, so it in no way had to be a 'farming' experience, no matter what missions you were playing there.
Also, I agree that with others that the standard missions and story arcs were great, and I was so glad when it finally became possible to go back and run the ones I'd outleveled.
As for whether CoH/CoV/Going Rogue meets the definition of an MMORPG? "massively multiplayer online role-playing game: any story-driven online video game in which a player, taking on the persona of a character in a virtual or fantasy world, interacts with a large number of other players." https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=mmorpg%20define (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=mmorpg%20define)
Yes, emphatically yes on all points, in my experience, and I played the game for 8 years.