Happy 8th CO!

[Xev]

No love for the 8th anniversary...? Well, it is indeed Champions Online's 8th Anniversary.

Kudo's to this year's excellent anniversary splash screen. A glass *clink* to CO's regulars.

I think it's been 4 years now for me (at least) that people have been saying CO is doomed for failure. CO is still going as strong as ever (you can take that how you want!) due to, imho, it is just a great game. You can make the toon you want, you can be the toon you want. Pretty much. A lot closer than I ever imagined when I was reading comic books, for sure..

Luv ya CO! Continued success. For the years I played regularly I never missed a single day of logging in. Even when I'm not actively playing I'm always glad you're around and will always come back to at least visit one of my most favorite comic book games ever.

Sometimes I wish I could play my two online games at once - all favorite toons at once. Like I used to wish I could give all my dogs the love of one dog due to they had more demands than I had time. Probably like some people feel about their kids!

Yer a good kid, Junior. *Pats CO*. Happy Birthday : )

[MyriVerse]

?CO!

Don't think it has the community that COH did, but I think it's at least equal in just about all other ways.

[Night-Hawk07]

CO is still going as strong as ever...

God only knows how. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike CO. Just that, for me, it falls in the same realm as SWTOR; lots of wasted potential. Biggest difference between the two is TOR has the publicity.

[Kaos Arcanna]

Did you pick up the new vehicle for all your toons, Xev?

It's fairly nice I think.

[Xev]

God only knows how.

It's because the game at it's core is just that good. Good enough to survive all that's been thrown at it until now.

Regular players keep the backbone strong. New players bring in the excitement. Nerfs and uninspiring development bring comments like yours and ex-player/backup game player statuses like mine.

Did you pick up the new vehicle for all your toons, Xev?

It's fairly nice I think.

Yay, Kaos!  : )

I'm not a big vehicle fan but yeah, I grabbed it on a few toons and should grab it on the rest if I still can. They do come in handy sometimes even for me (Travelling across Andrith comes to mind..) due to I never have a ranked flight power. I've not even looked at it yet, though. Very cool giveaway, though. I know I had vehicle envy until I finally tried one. Vehicles used to be pretty darn hard for newb players to get, too.

I've had to dodge some nerf problems but otherwise it's been fun playing again and I plan on doing more and I definitely wish CO a happy anniversary.

[princezilla]

God only knows how. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike CO. Just that, for me, it falls in the same realm as SWTOR; lots of wasted potential. Biggest difference between the two is TOR has the publicity.

Yeah that and their flaws being inverted. TOR dumped tons of effort into building an awesome game world full of interesting storylines then just copy pasted the same bland variation free character creation and mechanics systems you see in every WoW wannabe fantasy MMO while CObdid the opposite building arguably the single best character creator ever put into an MMO matched with unique and highly customizable mechanics only to stick it in a world that feels like a particularly low budget Chinese knockoff of the narmiest silver age comic world imaginable.

[Castegyre]

To be fair, that is the Champions setting. Back when I was regularly playing and running groups we often used the HERO system, but even when we played super heroes we never used the Champions material for a reason.

[MyriVerse]

...narmiest silver age comic world imaginable.

That's the beauty of it.

[Xev]

That's the beauty of it.

I would say they have just the right amount of narm.

[princezilla]

Its nearly impossible to take any of it seriously, CoX wasn't perfect in this regard particularly with some of their earliest stuff, but they did always at least attempt to give NPCs depth and story arcs gravity. Its particularly glaring how badly CO is lacking in this front when you look at the content from CoH's later issues. And when CoX did go cheesy it was mostly in a way that was self aware and genuinely funny.

[Night-Hawk07]

Its nearly impossible to take any of it seriously, CoX wasn't perfect in this regard particularly with some of their earliest stuff, but they did always at least attempt to give NPCs depth and story arcs gravity. Its particularly glaring how badly CO is lacking in this front when you look at the content from CoH's later issues. And when CoX did go cheesy it was mostly in a way that was self aware and genuinely funny.

Yes. CoH actually made me feel like a superhero most of the time.

Didn't mean to make this into a crap-on-CO thread, I'm just amazed the game is still around despite not having any major changes or releases (compared to, say, DCUO or STO), just maybe the odd alert or event, or stuff added to the Z-Store. Good for them, I just wish the game could realize it's potential.

[MyriVerse]

To each their own, but cheese is delicious.

[Xev]

Yes. CoH actually made me feel like a superhero most of the time.

Didn't mean to make this into a crap-on-CO thread, I'm just amazed the game is still around despite not having any major changes or releases (compared to, say, DCUO or STO), just maybe the odd alert or event, or stuff added to the Z-Store. Good for them, I just wish the game could realize it's potential.

I totally get what you are saying. I might replace 'amazed' with 'happy' in how you restated your point, above, but amazed definitely works, too. I don't take what you are saying as negative and I totally stick to my earlier not negative response  : )

Your point can be taken as a positive towards the game's core and the game's core players. A big positive.. This, is how I choose to take it.

To each their own, but cheese is delicious.

mmmmm.... cheese....

[Night-Hawk07]

To each their own, but cheese is delicious.

Cheese gives me a stomach ache....

[Xev]

Cheese gives me a stomach ache....

Sour cream, oddly, settles my stomach.

Sour cream and cheese....mmmm

With salsa and chips... yeah...

Carry on.

[princezilla]

To each their own, but cheese is delicious.

Cheese can be great when served to compliment or go alongside other dishes but pile it relentlessly on top of everything or eat nothing but it and you'll end up horribly constipated and unsatisfied.

[MyriVerse]

Thing is, you say you can't take anything in CO seriously, but imo, the world of CO seems to be a lot more dire than CoH.

Despite that, it is a wacky place. I love the fact that I can stand beside a guy looking like Arachnos and another guy looking like the Pink Panther at the same time.

[doc7924]

Nothing against the game at all, but I'd rather be celebrating COH's 13th Anniversary.

[LaughingAlex]

Thing is, you say you can't take anything in CO seriously, but imo, the world of CO seems to be a lot more dire than CoH.

Despite that, it is a wacky place. I love the fact that I can stand beside a guy looking like Arachnos and another guy looking like the Pink Panther at the same time.

I'd say it's not anywhere near as dire compared to CoH.  Partly because it's always the 'same' thing, always the same plot involving the qlithopic world.  Everything else never moves forward.  This was in contrast to CoX where you had multiple story archs from multiple branches, and when it did focus on one plot(the praetorian world) it went further into detail than CO ever did with the qlithopic invasion.

I think overall, though, it was the writing quality where CoH excelled at.  It was far wittier and more creative than CO.

[eabrace]

Cheese can be great when served to compliment or go alongside other dishes but pile it relentlessly on top of everything or eat nothing but it and you'll end up horribly constipated and unsatisfied.

Just keep your plunger handy.

[Xev]

I love the fact that I can stand beside a guy looking like Arachnos and another guy looking like the Pink Panther at the same time.

I popped in-game once encircled by a Hottiest of Hotties convention.. That was a pretty good moment.

[Brou]

*toots party horn*
Happy 8th, CO!

[Xev]

*spikes punch*

*twirls propeller on party hat*

woohoo!

[MyriVerse]

*plays with his toy Mechanon*

*throws a taco at it*

*does the Awesome Dance*

[ZeeHero]

CO made me feel like 10 times the super hero I ever felt like in COH, although I only played COH for an hour before I ran screaming from its awful and quite un heroic feeling early player experience.

CO now though is just a gallery of wasted potential and an awful game. the sole redeeming quality is the character creator, the world is fine, but the content design is worse than terrible,

[hurple]

CO made me feel like 10 times the super hero I ever felt like in COH, although I only played COH for an hour before I ran screaming from its awful and quite un heroic feeling early player experience.

   Yep, way to give it a fair chance, there.   

[ZeeHero]

it was bad enough that I really didn't want to suffer through it. I'm sure I would have loved the game if their low level experience wasn't so terrible.

[Xev]

it was bad enough that I really didn't want to suffer through it. I'm sure I would have loved the game if their low level experience wasn't so terrible.

lol stop baiting people.. Bad Zee, bad!

CoH rocked your world, you know it.

[ZeeHero]

I didn't like it much. it had a pretty poor early game experience so I went back to CO and didnt look back. At that time CO still looked like it might be salvageable, and the early player experience was far better.

[Xev]

I think the 8th is over, so, we may as well hijack this post.

I didn't like it much. it had a pretty poor early game experience so I went back to CO and didnt look back. At that time CO still looked like it might be salvageable, and the early player experience was far better.

Ah. You didn't try CoH when it first came out.

This is something I had in my favor. That, and I was a comic book collector as a kid. Put those two things together and CoH was a dream come true.

My wife wasn't nearly as impressed with it. We'd been playing EQ and she thought CoH was just too easy.

Me, I had the above in my favor + I got ..... a thrill out of taking on whole parking lots full of mobs. After playing a game where a single mob could chase you through several zones if it was tough enough and wanted to... I liked the change. I liked being SUPER.

and then we of course got nerfed a bunch of times.

And Retcons were added! Right off, real early. This made up for a lot of nerfing. Having no retcons was just too .... final.

Anyway, that's how I remember CoH. My comics finally came to life and I could kick the crap out of entire parking lots after being used to being chased across landscapes while wearing a fancy bathrobe. For me it was a big Win.

[princezilla]

I think the 8th is over, so, we may as well hijack this post.

Ah. You didn't try CoH when it first came out.

This is something I had in my favor. That, and I was a comic book collector as a kid. Put those two things together and CoH was a dream come true.

My wife wasn't nearly as impressed with it. We'd been playing EQ and she thought CoH was just too easy.

Me, I had the above in my favor + I got ..... a thrill out of taking on whole parking lots full of mobs. After playing a game where a single mob could chase you through several zones if it was tough enough and wanted to... I liked the change. I liked being SUPER.

and then we of course got nerfed a bunch of times.

And Retcons were added! Right off, real early. This made up for a lot of nerfing. Having no retcons was just too .... final.

Anyway, that's how I remember CoH. My comics finally came to life and I could kick the crap out of entire parking lots after being used to being chased across landscapes while wearing a fancy bathrobe. For me it was a big Win.

One of the most underrated things about CoX was that they really made you feel powerful and then eventually figured out how to both make the game challenging /and/ make you feel like a demigod though the adjustable difficulty settings (something I'm shocked that so few other mmos have attempted let alone at the level CoX did with updated one letting you adjust both enemy numbers and power separately), challenge coming from the fact that you were almost always outnumbered so even when you were struggling you were still dropping foes left and right( there is a huge difference in the feel of getting wrecked by an enemy you only manage to get down to half health and falling to a group of like eight but still managing to kill four of them before you go down and even at lower levels you were basically always fighting at least two to one odds), and the clear and consistent ranking system for enemy power relative to level so you knew that this particular foe you were having trouble with was special making beating them all the more satisfying.
The invention and incarnate systems amplified these by making you stronger without rendering older content obsolete and letting you take on small armies and go toe to toe with some of the games most iconic characters and group up with people to take on the military force of an entire nation.
Solo play did really drag at the earlier levels before you built an attack chain though, and they really only dealt with that by making it easier to power level though them. Most games are kinda like that though with CO being a notable exception however after that CO plateaus hard with the mid levels dragging on and progression completely halting at forty compounding the lack of an end game.

[MyriVerse]

I never had that feeling in CoX. I get it more in CO.

[Xev]

One of the most underrated things about CoX was that they really made you feel powerful and then eventually figured out how to both make the game challenging /and/ make you feel like a demigod though the adjustable difficulty settings (something I'm shocked that so few other mmos have attempted let alone at the level CoX did with updated one letting you adjust both enemy numbers and power separately), challenge coming from the fact that you were almost always outnumbered so even when you were struggling you were still dropping foes left and right( there is a huge difference in the feel of getting wrecked by an enemy you only manage to get down to half health and falling to a group of like eight but still managing to kill four of them before you go down and even at lower levels you were basically always fighting at least two to one odds), and the clear and consistent ranking system for enemy power relative to level so you knew that this particular foe you were having trouble with was special making beating them all the more satisfying.
The invention and incarnate systems amplified these by making you stronger without rendering older content obsolete and letting you take on small armies and go toe to toe with some of the games most iconic characters and group up with people to take on the military force of an entire nation.
Solo play did really drag at the earlier levels before you built an attack chain though, and they really only dealt with that by making it easier to power level though them. Most games are kinda like that though with CO being a notable exception however after that CO plateaus hard with the mid levels dragging on and progression completely halting at forty compounding the lack of an end game.

Yup.

Like you say, soloing your way through the levels gets grindy in every game. So that's not really a CoH thing.

The adjustability of mob strength and size is a very CoH thing and I liked it, too. Depending on my situation (Farming/AE'ing, PL'ing, XP'ing, Challenging myself, Plowing my way through a mish, etc) I could fine tune how difficult I wanted things to be, pretty well. And then gradually bump that level up... (unless I was just trying to breeze through something). I dunno if it made me feel demigodey... There were some times in the AE when it made me feel pretty badass, though  : D  +4/x8 ftw.



Leveling in CO, to me, is all about the Alurts.. Especially in the mid levels to 40 when I become less and less of a victim to 'bad' teams. Stack on as much XP boost as I can and run some Grabs. My newbs always start out running mishes with the intent of not falling back on Grabs but it never happens. Just too easy to run Grabs. If there's some bad Grabs.. I just run them again later. Still the least taxing way on my patience to level in the end. And I team my way to 40, too! Without having to put teams together. This is the #1 best thing about queues and not just CO Alurts. (Alurt is the correct spelling for the word's pronunciation, in-game, btw..)

Mechassassin........ALURT !

f/x  ; )