It's been mentioned before, but Champions Online is the closest I've found. And it's stil a long, long way away. I only played it for two months, and then got bored. (And not just because "it's not CoH")
Also as I said elsewhere on these forums, CoH was so unique that when I ask around in general MMO groups for a game like it, my lists of "favorite features from CoH" is taken to be some sort of made-up wishlist of features that have never existed in any game. It was just THAT different.
Yup.
Unfortunately this is experience of that downside to being unique. When it was up and running, it's wonderful, nothing like the game of COX. But now we know what happens if that or a unique game goes away. Then what? There is not another one. Like if a person play a generic fantasy game, that one closes they can hop to the next one that is near identical except with different location, names, looks (possible) and name of the classes but over all the same as the old one. With COX, there isnt a copy of it...yet. CO could have been, and what happened with CO oculd have happened with any group of devs. We lucked out to get some good ones and or the good ones that had power to say yea or nay and continued development that worked, some accidential, but worked nonetheless overall.
I think with COX gorup of devs, especially after foriming of paragon studios and Posi at least seemingly running the joint, that group could have made any game better with merely the way that they operated. Yeah I know sometimes funds are tight or not enough from the owners, but in CO, it's like pulling teeth to get information or what's next, besides things that came across Turtle's desk. We had Zwill. but that didnt stop the devs from talking themselves or releasing information about what was going on for the most part. A simple "Hey guys, times are tough, things are down, but we are working on this and that" like they did in COX works wonders. In CO, they held a half butt Q&A. In COX, everyday was Q&A. Sometimes the answers were simply, "No, we cant do that at this time due to limitations." like COX devs did with all sorts of ideas from animal models to new powers. But lo and behold they went to work tried it and we eventually got animal modeled pets and demons, two ideas that been floating around since I7 and maybe prior when people was throwing around the idea of "wish I could play a villain." in I5. Of course at the time it was dismissed as "Then why are you playing a game around heroes if you wanto be villains" by more than a few people but by I7, COV was released live.
Even with bugs, they stated what they was doing even if theycouldnt fix it like the base system, as it was said fro mthe devs themselves that they wanted to fix it but it tends to break orsomething of the likes. There wasnt a mass evacuation of the game. Most players just went, "Hey thanks for the reply. Well I'll work with what I got. In CO, people been wondering what is going on for years and it's been getting to the feeling as if the devs forsaken them. If that team of devs were on COX with that same method and attitude, it would have been in the same boat and if Posi and his crew was on CO with that method they employed, CO would have been more like COX, whether the gameplay stayed exactly the same or not. Communication is under rated dev-customer but it makes a huge difference. Most players can handle the truth and will make things work if given something to work with. In CO, it's mostly silence from the devs. The players have more repsect for Turtle than the unknown devs merely do to communication. If a dev came out and said, "hey we want to add new features but dont have resources, and can only do temp content and lockboxes because of xyz." then I bet most players in CO will try to solve xyz to get the ball rolling.
In COX, it seemed that most of the time, the players knew what the devs l new with things. Someone or people asked, "Say, why is this thing still broke?" 90% of the time soon, there will be an answer from a dev or a message from them through Zwill. or his equivalent. In CO, they barely answer their own tech support line, and dont think a dev posted in the CO forum in at leats a year it looks like. It's liek they dont even ready the forums at all and have no connection between the players and themselves. In large games with millions of players, it's understandable as that is a large group of people to deal with and lot of info. and voices. But CO isnt that big and more than likely smaller than COX. What is their excuse. Dont need money to talk to the customers. And that is one the main reasons why I think CO have potential to be proper alternative to COX but will never be at this rate.
I think most players can and do understand times are hard, it takes money to run a game, crap happens, devs cant work miracles, but at least say so. Or what else do they expect? People will still talk and go with information they have and will ask the same question and concern from three years ago today if it was never addressed in any manner, and after askign about the same bugs over and over and over that affect gameplay, it make it hard for some people to be optimistic and cheery for years with nothing in return to show for it. It used to be cheery and optimistic but understandably it diminished. Unfortunately now, many COX players float over there now and see this and say, Oh they are more negative than COX community." without thinking deeper of how that came to be.
