Searching for a CoH replacement

[SDragon]

Ok, I surrender.  I've been searching for a replacement for CoH since it's closing and so far I've got nothin'.  Where have people here been getting their fix?

This shouldn't be so hard, right?  I'd *like* CoH back but I know that's not likely to happen.  I get it and it's not like I need another super hero MMO.  I don't need a copy of CoH.  I just want something that captures what I enjoyed about CoH.  It HAS to be out there, with all the games on the market right now?  But so far...


Something with the ability to customize my look so I don't end up with teaming up with three guys that look just like me.  The ability to express myself and design a character's look to actually represent that character.  Instead of just looking like a mish-mash of the best gear.

Something with a variety of unique roles and abilities you can choose from.  CoH had two or three dozen variations on "melee fighter" and most of them felt and played quite differently.  Most other games I play, the classes all play virtually identically.  Cookie-cutter builds.  Bleeeh.

I'd like for freedom of movement similar to CoH but that might be pushing it.

Are CO and DCUO really my only options here?  CO's trial/free system kinda blows and DCUO turned me off instantly with their "Which DC character do you want to be!".

It's been a few years since I tried them out, are they worth the investment of time/energy?  Is there another option? 

[JaguarX]

there is no other game like COX.

Going into any other game and expecting COX like is set up for failure and thus you will not find any other game currently out enjoyable.

Looking for COX replacement or COX like game, CO and DCUO probably wont cut it. The only things those games have in common with COX is one of them had similar head guy and studio and mostly for both in relation to COX is that they are super hero mmo games. That is about it. Different focus, different way for doing things, different people, different play style, different version of fun. Thus if one go in looking for COX replacement they probably will be highly disappointed. Go to go in like people went in to COX. With open mind. Just like if one went into COX looking for WoW clone they probably would be just as disappointed as someone walking into CO or DCUO looking for COX clone.

Even the games that are being made that is supposedly purposely being made to be like COX may or may not be "Like COX" per say and depends on what made COX well COX and from the topic thread on that it seems there were a bunch of answers and to get all of that together would require exact replica of COX. Which is no where to be found on the market these days yet.


What kind of games did you enjoy playing before COX? Maybe you wont find COX replacement but maybe find other game you enjoy in the mean time.

[Angel Phoenix77]

there is no other game like COX.

Going into any other game and expecting COX like is set up for failure and thus you will not find any other game currently out enjoyable.

Looking for COX replacement or COX like game, CO and DCUO probably wont cut it. The only things those games have in common with COX is one of them had similar head guy and studio and mostly for both in relation to COX is that they are super hero mmo games. That is about it. Different focus, different way for doing things, different people, different play style, different version of fun. Thus if one go in looking for COX replacement they probably will be highly disappointed. Go to go in like people went in to COX. With open mind. Just like if one went into COX looking for WoW clone they probably would be just as disappointed as someone walking into CO or DCUO looking for COX clone.

Even the games that are being made that is supposedly purposely being made to be like COX may or may not be "Like COX" per say and depends on what made COX well COX and from the topic thread on that it seems there were a bunch of answers and to get all of that together would require exact replica of COX. Which is no where to be found on the market these days yet.


What kind of games did you enjoy playing before COX? Maybe you wont find COX replacement but maybe find other game you enjoy in the mean time.

this is true, however if you go into co without thinking it is the next city of you will be disappointed. but if you think of it as a separate game it could get you to the point where the successor games would come out.

[JaguarX]

this is true, however if you go into co without thinking it is the next city of you will be disappointed. but if you think of it as a separate game it could get you to the point where the successor games would come out.

yup.

But then again some people actually enjoy playing CO for what it is. Even a bit more than COX. Many left and never came back others kind of loved it when they finally tried it and while still some didn't like it. And some simply wont like it. But that goes for any game. Not everyone liked COX or else there would have been a lot more people playing. Many people came to COX tried it and left because it wasn't their cup of tea of what they were looking for in a game. And that isn't bad, just that tastes vary. COX was by no means perfect or flawless or the perfect game for everyone. For some it was simply off putting for various reasons, others it was the game to play among not many choices. For others it's the greatest time of their life, just like some players of just about any game including CO.

But you are right, it may be able to be thought of a hold over, as a separate it's own, different game until one of the other projects are finished

[Exxar]

There isn't a game on the market which fulfills all of our needs at once. It's either excellent character appearance customization (CO), freedom of movement (DCUO), story (not that it was one of CoH's strengths, but hey - The Secret World in its entirety and SWTOR class missions fit that bill) or character building (Path of Exile or The Secret World).

Here's a brief review of the games that I've tried since CoH's closure, in no particular order:

• The Secret World: Excellent story, great character building. Piss poor appearance customization, absolutely no incentive for altoholism. The way it's character building mechanics are set up make it enough to have just one character since you could eventually have all abilities on it, rolling a new one doesn't make it any quicker to focus in a different area. Anyway, there are no character levels, only skill and ability points that you get by gaining exp. Your skills limit you in the quality of the gear you can equip (which doesn't affect your appearance, but the available wardrobe items are rather sparse), while your abilities are the actual powers and passives you use in combat. Out of several hundred abilities you can get, you can only have seven active ones and seven passive ones equipped at the same time, so that makes for some excellent freeform character building. Trouble is that in group content it is expected that one party member is a tank, one a healer and the remaining three focus solely on DPS so it's not that much different than in other games, but the possibility to fulfill any role if you have the requisite abilities and gear is a major plus over other games. There aren't many buffs and debuffs so you can't really make a spec focused on support which is not healing. So for group content you're shoehorned into one of three character types, but the way you spec to achieve that is very flexible. For soloing, it's all about getting a good mix of everything. Aside from character building, the game really shines in its story with missions and NPC dialogues being absolutely brilliant, hands down best on the market. New content seems to come on an almost monthly basis and the game seems quite healthy. One of the better choices I'd say.
• Champions Online: If you can stomach the graphics style, the game has excellent character building, excellent appearance customization and freedom of movement on par with CoH. Trouble is, missions and story are absolute crap, and I find the actual combat to be boring as hell which is the main reason I didn't stick with the game. Even though the game recently got a new studio to take care of it, it's still pretty much dead in regards to development. Similar to The Secret World, there's some great freeform character building in there, but buffs and debuffs are likewise greatly diminished from what they were in CoH. Don't bother with control either, it flat out doesn't work. My problem with character building was that there are a couple of severely overpowered, unbalanced abilities so I had to purposely "forbid" them to myself if I wanted to have any fun, but it worked. Until I got bored of combat, which just doesn't have any punch at all.
• DCUO: This one's a mixed bag. Definitively the better of the two superhero MMOs in my opinion. In its current state, the game is actually quite good and healthy. Character appearance customization is... well, not as crappy as in TSW but not much better. The system is actually okay, appearance comes with gear but once you get a piece of gear you have its appearance forever and can use it whenever you want, even if you're no longer using that piece of gear. The problem is that there are very few appearances available, and most of them are of the spandex variety. Combat is very action-y but if you can get into it it's quite fun. Superpowers are separated from the weapons you use and while you can always know all weapon abilities for the weapon you're using, you'll have to make choices in the powers department. Character building in that regard is nothing special, but much better than in WoW clones. Buffs and debuffs are minor, but the game does have the best controls on the market, even though it's limited to short stuns - other games don't let you do even that reliably/frequently. It even has full-blown CoH-style holds but sadly those happen infrequently. Warning: if you're a soloer there are better games out there, endgame is very skewed towards grouping but thankfully its easy to get into it. I actually quite recommend DCUO in its current state, but personally I have better choices so I don't spend much time in it.
  
• The Lord of The Rings Online: It's a WoW clone, but it's one of the two best ones out there (the other being Rift). Mechanics-wise it's actually quite better than WoW. It has excellent atmosphere and while I can't comment on the endgame since I've never gotten there, leveling is excellent. Like all WoW clones you don't have a reason to have more than one character of each class, but if you like crafting you're not limited with crafter character levels, unlike in WoW. I'd probably have returned to the game and even stayed for longer if not permanently, if I didn't main a Warden which I've lost all will of playing due to it being drastically changed  several times while I was away. And I'm not in a mood to start fresh.
• Rift: It's a WoW clone, but it improved in every single feature WoW had and then added a bunch on top of it. If you're into that kind of game, this should definitively be your go-to. It has one of the best quality of life features I've seen so far. Excellent game with excellent devs except that the art style and atmosphere is a bit weird and off-putting for me so I don't frequent it. It also has the best character building of all WoW clones.
• Defiance: Ehh. Nope. Fun game for a while, but lacks a soul. Keep moving.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Only play this game if you're a SW fan and even then only if you wish to subscribe. Personally, it has the hands down best atmosphere and feel on the market, but the game itself is... utter and horrible crap. Besides the class story missions which are the very best on the market, everything else in the game is bland, boring and just plain bad. This is the worst WoW clone I've seen so far - not only is it a clone, but it's a clone that didn't take even half of the features and those that it did it managed to make ten times worse than in the original. WoW currently has better mechanics and more meaningful character building than this game. In fact, besides a few quality of life and innovative features (crew skills aka crafting), WoW is 10x better than this game in all regards except for the aforementioned class missions. Add to that the most horrible F2P model on the market and the fact that since the game originally tanked no new class missions are forthcoming (expansions will instead have one proper story arc per faction with the rest being repeatable crap), it truly leaves a bitter taste in the mouth unless you're a SW fanatic. I adore the atmosphere and feel of the game, but everything else just puts me off badly. Worst love/hate relationship I ever had. Don't think I'll be returning here except to finish all of the class stories.
• Guild Wars 2: This one is an acquired taste. Hands down the best quality of life in any game, and one of the very few games which do our good old exemplaring right. Best leveling game too. But when you get to the level cap, you don't really have much to do if you're not into PvP, except for rolling another class (of course, there's no point in having multiple characters of the same class). And while the character building system is quite good, the way the skills are set up can leave a bit of a bitter taste. If you're not into PvP, you'll always have a couple of skills completely useless in PvE forced upon you. Also, while in theory the gearing system is quite flexible, in practice there is only one useful kind of gear and that's the one that gives you the highest damage output. Even if you gear and spec for tanking you can't tank like in other games and must dodge the attacks, and you can do that in pure damage gear and spec so why bother building for anything else. Buffs and debuffs are actually quite varied, but everyone gets them and speccing primarily for support if a fail since you can't get strong enough in it to justify the loss of damage. So yeah, speccing is quite flexible and varied, as long as you focus primarily on damage and weaving as much support abilities into that as you can without sacrificing too much damage. It's a real shame, the game could have been perfect if not for a few not bad but more misguided design decisions.
• World of Warcraft: I came back to the game during the recent 75% off sale, having last played it at the start of The Burning Crusade. While my memories of it were of a really bland game unless you were into hardcore raiding, I was very surprised with its current state. I haven't reached the new level cap yet, but the game seems to have drastically improved during the years. There are even very few of those "go bring me 20 monster kidneys, and by the way only 1 monster in 10 drops them" quests left. The leveling experience is quite fun now, and character building, although very sparse, is actually pretty meaningful in its choices. I'm not sure what will happen once I reach the level cap, but for now it seems that I'll stay here until Wildstar is released.
• Neverwinter: If you like D&D... it actually has nothing in common with any edition of D&D, except for some vocabulary from the 4th edition. The character building system is a refinement of the one from CO with the exception that you don't get to pick you active abilities freely like in freeform CO. Appearance customization is close to nil, but the speccing and combat systems are pretty good. Very fun to play too, but there is only one questline to level by so alting is a pain. The Forge or whatever the player-made mission system like in STO or our old Architect is called could help with that but I'm in the camp that sees it as a nice bonus, while it's the responsibility of the developers to provide the main game content. Haven't reached the level cap but I hear nasty things like only being allowed to die twice in dungeons before being kicked out. In any case, it's decently F2P so no harm in trying it out. What ultimately puts me off of it is that there is no subscription option and I don't like being nickled and dimed for everything, even if you can quite reasonably play the whole game without buying anything.
• Path of Exile: This one is the hidden ace in the sleeve. It's not an MMO but a Diablo-style ARPG, but boy, if you're like me and are a chronic altoholic and like character building the most, this is your game. End of discussion. Yes, there is not much to build for in regards to buffs or debuffs and like in all games of this kind it's all about a proper mix of damage and survivability, but the choices are immense. Active skills are governed by gems that are actually quest rewards and mob drops you socket into equipment. They come in two varieties - skill gems, which give you actual abilities, and support gems, which modify those abilities if you socket them into slots that are linked with the ones where your skill gems reside. There's a wide variety of modifications, from turning your single-target melee attacks into AoEs to giving you multiple projectiles with spells. But even better than the skill gem system is the passive skill tree, affectionately called skilldrasill by some. It's a vast web of nodes giving you various passive benefits, and all classes use the same tree but start in different parts of it. Respeccing is costly so it's easier to roll a new toon if you want to try something different, which also gives you a better feel for it by leveling. While there of course are flavor of the month cookie cutter builds that "are the strongest", pretty much everything is viable if you know what you're doing. And this is a rare game in which you must know what you're doing if you wanna live, you can't just go around speccing and gearing yourself willy nilly. While it does start a bit slow and is quite easy for 2/3 of the leveling process, once you get to the last difficulty (like in Diablo) it gets very, very unforgiving of badly thought out builds. If you like this kind of game (like I do), there really isn't anything else on the market which can beat it. I'm not currently playing it because of some obsessively compulsive personal reasons, but it's the and all be all if you ask me. And oh, it's actually and truly completely free to play - you really don't need to spend a single dollar on it to get the full experience. It's financed solely by cosmetic microtransactions. You can also buy more character slots and item stash tabs, but you start out with more than enough - while 4 starting (free) stash tabs don't really speak much I think that 24 character slots do hehe.

[Second Chances]

Since you aren't going to find a CoH replacement (unless one of the 'spiritual successors' the community are working on should bear fruit), the deal will be to nail down what -you- liked about it in particular, and maybe you can find a game that at least scratches those itches. This list you made is a good start, but does it really cover what you'd need a single game to include?

Something with the ability to customize my look so I don't end up with teaming up with three guys that look just like me.  The ability to express myself and design a character's look to actually represent that character.  Instead of just looking like a mish-mash of the best gear.

Something with a variety of unique roles and abilities you can choose from.  CoH had two or three dozen variations on "melee fighter" and most of them felt and played quite differently.  Most other games I play, the classes all play virtually identically.  Cookie-cutter builds.  Bleeeh.

I'd like for freedom of movement similar to CoH but that might be pushing it.

Also, depending on your situation, you may not want to limit yourself to MMOs. If you have a buddy or two that you like playing with, there are co-op multiplayer games where they make it pretty easy to play together (iow, you don't have to be on the same LAN, you just both need to be logged into Steam). Some, like Borderlands 2, sometimes feel a lot like an MMO in that there are drops and you need to upgrade your stuff as you level, but since it isn't actually an MMO, they are very generous in dropping things. A friend was telling me about Saints Row IV, which he has been playing with a friend (it has a two-player co-op mode)... I don't think the tone of the missions would work for me, personally, but from what he told me of the powers and mobility it sounded like they had the super-powered part down.

Anyway, in the end, the goal is whether you are having fun playing it, not whether it is like CoH, so thinking more about about what itches you really need to have scratched will probably help.

[RockLeeXIII]

Greetings ...

Well SDragon , i too have searched for a game to fill the gap of CoX since it's loss to us and i have not found any game , tried many but found none ... the best thing to do is start playing something else in the mean time while you wait for CoX to be resurrected or start getting into trying to bring back CoX , eg follow the save CoH posts and/or icon ...
Thanks to Icon ... you can go back and fly around ... the world is sorta empty but you can pop a menu to add some things ... there is no fighting system in place but you can create some nice pics ...

just a thought .

[Felderburg]

• Defiance: Ehh. Nope. Fun game for a while, but lacks a soul. Keep moving.

Ouch! I was curious about the game, but never started it since I don't have cable, and can't watch the accompanying TV show on the Sci Fi channel. Did you watch the show, to get that full experience? If not, do you think that's what was missing? If so, was there at least some novelty in tying the game to the show?

[Exxar]

You don't have to watch the show to enjoy the game at all. It's not that the atmosphere or the story of the game is the problem (even though it's nothing special, and watching the show doesn't help much), but the gameplay itself is lackluster. You just run around shooting bandits, mutants and monsters in the open world which is either countryside or later on an urban area, with very few instanced indoor missions. So the landscape doesn't change much, and the way you play doesn't change practicalyl at all since there are very few active abilities you get during leveling. Specifically, there are only four of them, and you start with one. Everything else are various passive modifiers which either boost one of those abilities or give you stuff like +x damage with snipers or when attacking an opponent from behind. So although it's decently fun, it's the same old, same old all the time. It gets boring rather quickly for an MMO, and since there's no point in rolling alts... This is actually the only MMO which I've played for less than a month I think. So yeah, move along, nothing to see here.

And oh, tying the game to the show - it has no effect on anything. The game was released and the show started in April, and the first series of the show concluded in July. The next season is scheduled for June. Since the game and show are running concurrently only four months a year, you can't really have stuff from the show carrying over into the game in a manner that feels like one is affecting the other. Instead, if you watch the show, you'll be familiar with the setting and characters in the game, and that's about it. So it's just a fancy novelty with no practical ramifications whatsoever. No difference from making a game based on any other already existing property.

[dwturducken]

Personally, I dig the show but have no interest in the game.

For me, SW:TOR is filling the void, ATM. The problem I have is that anything that fills the void is only momentary. Maybe I get a couple of months out of a game before I get bored and have to go looking again. I feel like it's all just marking time until one of the Plan Z projects reaches beta.

[WWE-Tazz]

Wildstar is a lot like COH in many ways, but if you hunger for COH you might want to try getting on the bootleg COH server that everyone here seems to avoid talking about.

[Aggelakis]

Wildstar is a lot like COH in many ways, but if you hunger for COH you might want to try getting on the bootleg COH server that everyone here seems to avoid talking about.

I know some of the Titan crew (SCoRE) is working on reverse engineering, and then there's SEGs, but I haven't seen anything about a bootleg server. Believe me, I've been looking! Loves me some CoH!

[dwturducken]

I know some of the Titan crew (SCoRE) is working on reverse engineering, and then there's SEGs, but I haven't seen anything about a bootleg server. Believe me, I've been looking! Loves me some CoH!

We won't know of one until someone wants us to and tells us privately. If we could just Google it up, so could the legal team at NC$oft.

[Gleech]

If we could just Google it up, so could the legal team at NC$oft.

You see this is assuming NCSoft really cares at this point. If they did, SEGS would be shutdown already.

...but if you hunger for COH you might want to try getting on the bootleg COH server that everyone here seems to avoid talking about.

I lol'd pretty hard at this considering I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm not a part of it, but I know exactly what you're talking about.

[WWE-Tazz]

You see this is assuming NCSoft really cares at this point. If they did, SEGS would be shutdown already.
I lol'd pretty hard at this considering I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm not a part of it, but I know exactly what you're talking about.

Thanks for acknowledging it, I had made some other posts regarding it and it seems like they have somehow vanished from the forum, truth is if you wanted the game back all people need to do is get behind the guy who is doing it

[TonyV]

Thanks for acknowledging it, I had made some other posts regarding it and it seems like they have somehow vanished from the forum, truth is if you wanted the game back all people need to do is get behind the guy who is doing it

I just wanted to address the tinfoil hat conspiracy here.  The reason we delete such posts is because you have a community here who is desperate to have their game back, and there are people in the world who would love nothing more than to grief people by pretending that there's some secret group out there that they're not privy to who already has a private server up and running.  If you want to post rumors and allegations and accusations and whatnot, then back it up with something.  Otherwise, all you're doing is unnecessarily creating angst and woe, and we're going to treat it like we would any other troll post and remove it.  I don't want these forums used for the purpose of unnecessarily creating woe and strife.

So yes, maybe there is a secret group of people out there running a private server.  Maybe Joss Whedon also secretly has a sequel to Firefly in the works and the old cast is secretly working on it.  Maybe Bill Gates really will give you $1,000 if you forward that email to all of your friends and that little girl with cancer really did want to see how many "likes" her picture would get on Facebook.  Since you can't really prove a negative beyond all doubt, when it comes to such claims that could cause disruption within the community, I'm upholding the standard of making the people who are making extraordinary claims prove the positive assertion instead.  That's why when I saw that Agge had deleted the post, I left it that way and I encourage her to continue keeping an eye out for such posts.

Maybe some folks are confusing projects with one another and Chinese whispers-style misunderstandings are rampant, or even some people may just be trying to stir the puddin' by griefing others who are a little on the gullible side.  (I know, right?  Some people actually get their jollies that way?)  Don't be one of those people on either side of the equation.  If and when we have anything to report, I promise, I'll report as much as I can as soon as I can.  If you know something and you want me to, let me know and I'll check into it myself, and I'll report what I find out.  Otherwise, until then, my advice will always be that barring some substance behind such rumors beyond "so-en-so told me so" or "they deleted my posts so the conspiracy must be true", don't believe anything you read on the Internet.

[Gleech]

With all due respect, Tony,
I'll see your reply and raise you this:
Why all the secrecy around SCoRE?

You of all people should know. Though you have openly admitted there is something going on, I have yet to see any patch notes or proof such a thing exists.

I mean honestly that's all I'd need to be satisfied for awhile. Just seeing progress is enough for me.

[Pinnacle Blue]

With all due respect, Tony,
I'll see your reply and raise you this:
Why all the secrecy around SCoRE?

You of all people should know. Though you have openly admitted there is something going on, I have yet to see any patch notes or proof such a thing exists.

I mean honestly that's all I'd need to be satisfied for awhile. Just seeing progress is enough for me.

The reason for the secrecy is obvious to anyone who will think about it for ten seconds.  It's so NCSoft doesn't get wind of it and shut it down before it has a chance to exist.

[Gleech]

The reason for the secrecy is obvious to anyone who will think about it for ten seconds.  It's so NCSoft doesn't get wind of it and shut it down before it has a chance to exist.

Yet projects like SEGS are out there to the public with no issues (Currently; I'm aware they ran into issues while CoH was running).

Also, there's this MMO that closed down a few months ago called Toontown Online. It was owned and run by Disney (I'd say a company bigger than NCSoft and more protective of their property). There's a very well known private server project that has been made public since the closing of the game called Toontown Rewritten. Disney has yet to touch this project and they've been releasing patch notes and daily updates since October 29th. Disney, who are overprotective of all their products, doesn't care.

I feel like we're being a little too scared of NCSoft. If they cared, SEGS would've been sued awhile ago.

[TonyV]

With all due respect, Tony,
I'll see your reply and raise you this:
Why all the secrecy around SCoRE?

Because I don't want people to fear reprisal for working on it.  I've said all along that I'm not stopping anyone who wants to publicly acknowledge that they're working on the project to come forward and say so.  If they choose not to, then I'm going to respect that.

Otherwise, there's not much to say.  They're working on implementing the APIs that the game client uses to do stuff.  If it helps any, I wrote a friggin' awesome linked list library in C (not C++) that does stuff like sorts the list using a modified mergesort (since most other algorithms such as quicksort depend on the elements being in an array), and right now, I'm working on implementing a library to handle red-black binary trees so that you can maintain a height-balanced sorted list with O(log n) efficiency instead of O(n).  Really, to be honest, that's just me boning up on my C skills and general CS skills and working to find some practical niche to insert myself into.  Other folks are working on various other parts of the project, such as implementing the weird networking scheme that CoH used to communicate with the client.  Let's see, there's also been some discussion around how to implement custom server-side settings, different server architectures (i.e. how the account server, map server, database server, and [whatever] server(s) interact with each other), and even some discussion on advanced topics like AI and pathing.  And, of course, there's a lot of gnashing of teeth as the client code is pulled apart and various and sundry pitfalls and gotchas are discovered.  You'd be surprised how much stuff is hard-coded in there.  I'm not going to bad-mouth the former devs because they had to work under a tight schedule, but still... Damn...

Does that really help any?  There aren't any patch notes because the only thing that's actually been written so far is test code, either stuff (like what I've been doing) that will be foreseeably needed, or code designed to pick apart various pieces of the client and see how it reacts.  And I don't want to post stuff like architecture diagrams and notes because I don't want to antagonize NCsoft by doing this piecemeal.  ("So hey!  Want to come after us now?  No?  Okay, how about now?  ...")  Until we have some code that actually does something, communication will probably remain in that status.