Author Topic: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever  (Read 2134 times)

doc7924

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I remember once someone saying to me that in the beta for COH there were not really AT's - you could pick any combination of powersets like say a fire blaster with invulnerability or an empathy with a broadsword.

Just wondering if that was true and if it was I think that would have made a great vet or incarnate bonus or something.

zendarin

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Re: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2013, 01:28:40 AM »
I wasn't around in beta. I didn't start until the end of Issue 2 but I had heard that the early design didn't have archetypes. I don't know if it was beta or early internal testing but remember hearing discussions from the devs saying they changed it because they thought too many people would gimp their characters by taking two non-attack powersets (like Super Reflexes and Empathy). I also heard that during this time Origins played a bigger part in your character design.  They also had hit locations (head, torso, arm, leg).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3kW2Le9TJk

zendarin

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Re: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2013, 01:48:13 AM »
It is interesting and weird to watch that video. Check out some of the differences:

  • Notice the look and location of the Atlas statue at the begining.
  • Check out the Mission terminals
  • at about the 6 minute mark is more details about building your hero.
  • Pick from 7 origins?
  • Jack mentions 40 zones, bases, arenas, famous player heroes giving out missions.

Reiraku

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Re: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2013, 05:00:35 AM »
I remember once someone saying to me that in the beta for COH there were not really AT's - you could pick any combination of powersets like say a fire blaster with invulnerability or an empathy with a broadsword.

Just wondering if that was true and if it was I think that would have made a great vet or incarnate bonus or something.

It was in the early Alpha build, long before ATs were on the board. You could pick any power, target body parts (hinder movement by hitting legs, etc), and powers behaved a lot differently (claws was a toggle that gave your attacks extra damage).

It was scrapped due to worries over people picking only healing powers and such and gimping themselves.

doc7924

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Re: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever
« Reply #4 on: June 20, 2013, 02:14:58 PM »
It was in the early Alpha build, long before ATs were on the board. You could pick any power, target body parts (hinder movement by hitting legs, etc), and powers behaved a lot differently (claws was a toggle that gave your attacks extra damage).

It was scrapped due to worries over people picking only healing powers and such and gimping themselves.

It's too bad they took out the body targeting - would have added more strategy to combat.

General Idiot

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Re: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2013, 04:45:00 PM »
At the same time it would've made the game a very different beast from the one we came to know and love. The addition of deciding what part of the enemy to target would likely slow combat down a little, which would've made it a little less appealing to me at least.

Zekiran

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Re: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2013, 06:39:53 PM »
It also would have bogged the game down tremendously and wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. I'm glad that most of that stuff was scrapped before actual Beta.

doc7924

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Re: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2013, 06:44:31 PM »
It also would have bogged the game down tremendously and wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. I'm glad that most of that stuff was scrapped before actual Beta.

If it was optional I don't see how it would bog the game down. In fact for fighting bosses or AV's it could have been useful.

Zekiran

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Re: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever
« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2013, 06:56:50 PM »
If it was optional all the code would still need to be there for everyone, and that is what I mean. It would require far more back-end information to be recorded, implemented and in the case of "being optional" being told not to work. It would still be calculated, you realize that right? It would *have* to, because at any moment if someone toggled that feature - anywhere in the game, you'd have to have that targeting, health, locational defenses, etc.

It would be fun for a turn-based strategy game. But not for an mmo. COH was never a "fighting game" like that.

doc7924

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Re: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2013, 12:38:35 AM »
If it was optional all the code would still need to be there for everyone, and that is what I mean. It would require far more back-end information to be recorded, implemented and in the case of "being optional" being told not to work. It would still be calculated, you realize that right? It would *have* to, because at any moment if someone toggled that feature - anywhere in the game, you'd have to have that targeting, health, locational defenses, etc.

It would be fun for a turn-based strategy game. But not for an mmo. COH was never a "fighting game" like that.

I thought you meant slow down as in people talking longer to fight by taking time to target.

But it is probably that reason they decided to take it out.

FourSpeed

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Re: A question for those who played COH beta back in 2004 or whenever
« Reply #10 on: June 21, 2013, 09:47:34 PM »
It was in the early Alpha build, long before ATs were on the board. You could pick any power, target body parts (hinder movement by hitting legs, etc), and powers behaved a lot differently (claws was a toggle that gave your attacks extra damage).

It was scrapped due to worries over people picking only healing powers and such and gimping themselves.

This is my recollection and understanding as well. There was big concern that players would possibly end up with
completely useless characters.

By the time open beta occurred, that was all gone and the AT's were fundamentally as they were at live release.


A part of the issue (iirc) was also the lack of numbers to quantify powers. Instead, only vague decriptions were shown,
and frequently, they were inaccurate and inconsistent as well. 

Even after release, those descriptions persisted, so it would have been even worse if you could take *any* power.

As it was, there were still plenty of folks that took ALL the travel powers, or went Pool Power crazy. While that didn't
make the characters useless, it certainly did reduce their effectiveness in many cases.

Regards,
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