New efforts!

[Arcana]

I tended to think CO was due to a urine match between Jack and Matt.  Of course, I could be wrong.  Those that played it that I knew all told me it felt half baked.  I didn't even make it out of the tutorial myself once I finally tried it.

I don't think the connection between CO and CoH is as strong as most people seemed to think.  Because it was developed by Cryptic, there are some design similarities or analogs between the two, but its important to remember that Cryptic did not stop writing CoH on a Friday and start writing CO on a Monday.  In fact, the Cryptic team had already split in two at the time of the NCSoft buyout and the formation of Paragon Studios.  The intervening project people sometimes forget: Marvel Universe Online.  Cryptic had been working on that project for a while, and the team that built CO was really the MUO team, not the CoH team in large part. 

Also, if you had seen the Alpha and pre-Beta period of CO ... well lets just say that its simply impossible that CO launched as a grand plan to improve CoH.  The CO that launched didn't even bear any resemblance to itself from the early days.  I've been told that MUO was a more skill-tree based powers system, and from the pre-beta I know the original idea** for CO was to take the concept of frameworks from the HERO system and expand that into a points-based freeform-within-structure powers system.  That honestly was going to require more math than Cryptic has ever possessed in its corporate life, and what CO launched with looks to me like truncated MUO trees in structureless frameworks-as-power families (something kind of like frameworks, but not really, eventually appeared in CO when they went F2P).

Of course, because there was and is cross-pollination between the Cryptic and Paragon dev teams, it can be difficult to know with certainty what the root cause of a game design similarity is.  Sometimes it smacks you in the face, like STO's specialization trees (I'm guessing the work of Matt Miller, who also worked on the CoH incarnate system).  Sometimes its more subtle (Cryptic devs come and go, but Cryptic's deft hand at numerical design of dynamic mitigation in Excel is a signature I recognize across all their games).


** Well, not the original original idea, but that's a really long story

[ryuplaneswalker]

Save maybe the WoW players being maaybe close to south korean/japanese gamers in terms of willingness to fall pray to a grindfest, but most other westerners are not interested in a game where it's nothing but an extreme grind.

The amount of grind in WOW is very overstated, even the hardest content in the game is doable with minimal item power if you actually know what you are doing.

Most of the "hardest" content in the game is cleared by the top players a few weeks after it is opened, and the current expansion was miles worse than the last ones because the loot lists were psychotically inflated to absurd lengths due to a new loot system, and even then I was raid prepared after about a week of running dungeons.

[Arcana]

I never said the graphics were simple.  They were, in fact, quite advanced.  I did say they have a comic book feel to them which was the point behind the game.  let the players play their personal heroes/villains in a shared comic book.

I don't think it was intentional for the game to have a specific comic book visual style.  In fact, I think that was one of the things people faulted CO for originally: that while some people liked (and still like) CO's very stylized graphics, they were too stylized for many.  I think CoH's relationship to comic books was to mine them for ideas, but not to try too hard to actually *be* a comic book video game.  It was a game that used the ideas, concepts, metaphors, and some of the visual elements of the various comic book genres (initially the superhero genre, and slowly expanding outward) but I personally think it worked because they incorporated those ideas into their own style rather than try to ape another.

I think CoH would have worked just as well with - and I would not have mineded playing a CoH 3.0 that included - photorealistic  graphics.  For me the graphics were the medium to deliver the game, but not the game itself.

[LadyVamp]

I don't think it was intentional for the game to have a specific comic book visual style.  In fact, I think that was one of the things people faulted CO for originally: that while some people liked (and still like) CO's very stylized graphics, they were too stylized for many.  I think CoH's relationship to comic books was to mine them for ideas, but not to try too hard to actually *be* a comic book video game.  It was a game that used the ideas, concepts, metaphors, and some of the visual elements of the various comic book genres (initially the superhero genre, and slowly expanding outward) but I personally think it worked because they incorporated those ideas into their own style rather than try to ape another.

I think CoH would have worked just as well with - and I would not have mineded playing a CoH 3.0 that included - photorealistic  graphics.  For me the graphics were the medium to deliver the game, but not the game itself.

The game had the feel, at least to me, of the old style comic books of the 60s and early 70s.  These were the ones I grew up with as hand me downs from my sister's boyfriends.  Being 8 years older than me, they got to collect the stuff I was too young to collect.  I got the feeling of being in that era of comics when playing coh

[Aggelakis]

The amount of grind in WOW is very overstated, even the hardest content in the game is doable with minimal item power if you actually know what you are doing.

Most of the "hardest" content in the game is cleared by the top players a few weeks after it is opened, and the current expansion was miles worse than the last ones because the loot lists were psychotically inflated to absurd lengths due to a new loot system, and even then I was raid prepared after about a week of running dungeons.

I've got LFR raid iLevels and I've only done two normal dungeons and the Anniversary Molten Core raid. I don't even have silver damage or healing unlocked. Garrison & crafted gear. :D

[LadyVamp]

I don't think the connection between CO and CoH is as strong as most people seemed to think.  Because it was developed by Cryptic, there are some design similarities or analogs between the two, but its important to remember that Cryptic did not stop writing CoH on a Friday and start writing CO on a Monday.  In fact, the Cryptic team had already split in two at the time of the NCSoft buyout and the formation of Paragon Studios.  The intervening project people sometimes forget: Marvel Universe Online.  Cryptic had been working on that project for a while, and the team that built CO was really the MUO team, not the CoH team in large part. 

Arcana,  your knowledge of this is more vast than most and certainly more than mine.  I could have read too much into it though I tended to feel there was more than just a falling out between Jack and the rest of the team.  I can't site specific examples of why I feel this way.  It's more of a gut feeling.  Over the years, I've learned to trust my gut.  And even if I'm wrong about that, I'm sure there was some competition between the CoH team and the MUO team.  Some one upmanship if you will.

[Codewalker]

I've got LFR raid iLevels and I've only done two normal dungeons and the Anniversary Molten Core raid. I don't even have silver damage or healing unlocked. Garrison & crafted gear. :D

<-- Gold and Endless-30 Healer with crafted gear and some blues, before ever stepping foot in a raid... not even LFR. /flex

I got gold DPS in my crappy ret offspec, too, which really cheesed off our (bad) warlock in full raid gear struggling to get silver. :D

[ivanhedgehog]

I played CO for the first three months it was live, and came back to CoH.  I never regretted that decision, and after CoH went away, I played SWTOR until very recently.  Even with the new end-game content, I just really was not enjoying it anymore.  I considered CO, but got the impression that not much had REALLY changed since I left, so I went with DCUO.  Not really having that much fun there, but for now it is something new. 

I just keep hoping CoH makes a comeback before I have to spend too much time in DCUO, as the combat/movement system is SO different, that I am afraid I will get used to it, and then CoH will feel strange!

I left swtor and am playing wow now...at least it is new and diferent

[archaist]

<-- Gold and Endless-30 Healer with crafted gear and some blues, before ever stepping foot in a raid... not even LFR. /flex

I got gold DPS in my crappy ret offspec, too, which really cheesed off our (bad) warlock in full raid gear struggling to get silver. :D

To be fair, providing ground's scaling is not linear. Doing it with higher ilvl gear actually makes it harder. When I was going for as many waves possible, I actually went back and got a 615 set from some normal dungeons. The difference is pretty noticeable trying to do it at 615 compared to a high ilevel.

Healing even more so because higher ilvls mean the scaling on the damage increases, but the scaling on your tank's health never changes. So having a higher ilevel will substantially increase damage, but not compensate in tank health at all.

It's really funny because I got 30endless healing in Panda land, and then got it when I had to do silver for H dungeons. I then  came back when my guild was starting mythic HM and was having more trouble then I was the first time, and I was like what is going on here?

[Teikiatsu]

It's really funny because I got 30endless healing in Panda land, and then got it when I had to do silver for H dungeons. I then  came back when my guild was starting mythic HM and was having more trouble then I was the first time, and I was like what is going on here?

After reading the Wow-ese I feel the same way right now :) Ah the joys of speaking/writing a game-specific language...

[Sinistar]

Some old CoH pals of mine are trying to get me to sign up for WoW, is it worth joining WoW at this late date in its existence?

[Surelle]

Some old CoH pals of mine are trying to get me to sign up for WoW, is it worth joining WoW at this late date in its existence?

Ever since Cataclysm, Blizzard has dumbed down its already-simplistic classes to preschool levels.  The pets in the pet battles have more skills than the classes do these days.  WoW is little more than a Facebook game at this point (and Garrison follower missions, where you send the followers off to fight and you aren't even involved otherwise in those "battles" are a prime example). 

I'd recommend rather that you download Everquest 2.  It has a free to play version that won't really pinch at you until you hit end-game (and if you're still playing by level 90, you really should pay them something anyway).  There are 26 classes with a wild variety of skills that can be further customized,  EQ2 has much more content than WoW, and EQ2 does a great job putting on large holiday celebrations and having constant additions to the game. 

[Codewalker]

Some old CoH pals of mine are trying to get me to sign up for WoW, is it worth joining WoW at this late date in its existence?

It seems decidedly 'meh' to me these days. I used to play it a lot more during Burning Crusade and Wrath. Cataclysm was OK and had some decent story hooks but also some annoyances -- mostly removing iconic class abilities -- and the stat explosion was off the charts.

I skipped out on the Panda expansion entirely.

It all seems very easymode now. With the cross-server grouping and significantly reduced raid difficulty (Normals are now Heroic, Heroic is now Mythic, and the new Normal mode is a joke) there is very little reason to actually do things as a group anymore, and since the only reason I was playing was to raid with RL friends that I work with who are now just pugging everything because it's faster...

Garrisons are OK but get boring quick. About the only thing I'm even doing now is taking advantage of the scaling added for the stat squish to solo old content for achievements and nostalgia...

[Apogee]

After reading the Wow-ese I feel the same way right now :) Ah the joys of speaking/writing a game-specific language...

Lol, I played WoW for two years and I have no idea what they were saying.  Granted I did quit just before Burning Crusade.

[Arcana]

Arcana,  your knowledge of this is more vast than most and certainly more than mine.  I could have read too much into it though I tended to feel there was more than just a falling out between Jack and the rest of the team.  I can't site specific examples of why I feel this way.  It's more of a gut feeling.  Over the years, I've learned to trust my gut.  And even if I'm wrong about that, I'm sure there was some competition between the CoH team and the MUO team.  Some one upmanship if you will.

I'm sure there was competition of a sorts, but remember that even though we all know these things are pretty permeable there was supposed to be a Chinese wall between the two dev teams (MUO and CoH) for various legal and financial reasons - they couldn't *obviously* compete with each other when they were not supposed to know too many of the details of what they were even doing.  I mean, the MUO team could actually play CoH and know what was happening in that game, but they couldn't rub the CoH team's noses in what they were doing when they were not supposed to be talking about it.

The other thing to consider is that Jack is not what I would describe as a "details guy."  He's more of a stratospheric idea guy, and that means what appears to be design competition between two different teams can't be directly fueled by Jack's design decisions most of the time.  Hypothetically speaking Jack could have said "CoH has an architect, we need a Foundry."  And that would be the end of the competition for Jack.  Jack didn't even stick around to launch CO because he had moved on to STO, and from there to NWN.  Jack likes launching MMOs.  I don't get the impression he likes to support them nearly as much.  If anything, that might be the source of some professional friction, but you can't get into a lot of fights with someone that won't stand still long enough to fight you.

[archaist]

Some old CoH pals of mine are trying to get me to sign up for WoW, is it worth joining WoW at this late date in its existence?

Just to mimic some of the previous posts, I wouldn't suggest WoW unless you plan on joining a guild and raiding. The single player / pvp isn't that great.

[Rigo42]

Some old CoH pals of mine are trying to get me to sign up for WoW, is it worth joining WoW at this late date in its existence?

If you have friends that are going to be sticking with you threw the entire thing, I feel it is worth it. While the game has been out for a while, and if you try and closely follow the lore from now till the last expansion (WoD) you will be confused.

But from a game play and party aspect, its phenomenal. Lots of content to keep you entertained (which keeps it from being an endless grind), some of the main character stories are really cool,  and the main cities are beautiful.


If  I was in your situation, I would indeed give it a try. But just don't expect it to be anything related to CoH or else you will be disappointed :(

[Tubbius]

Great lore in WoW?  Sure, if it's remotely connected to the original WarCraft games at all any more.  :)

What doesn't WoW have?

WoW doesn't have my AE hero Waddle the Penguin.

[Arcana]

After reading the Wow-ese I feel the same way right now :) Ah the joys of speaking/writing a game-specific language...

I had a lot of sympathy for players that tried to jump into the more esoteric or technical discussions on our forums for this reason.  Its easy to take for granted how difficult it is to pick up the lingo, until you have to do it yourself on another game forum.

[Sinistar]

Thanks everyone for the honest replies, to be honest I've been reading up on how WoW has both evolved and devolved over the years, I think I'll take it for a quick spin this weekend but I'm not counting on it capturing my interest.

Suppose I could reactivate SWTOR or DCUO but my heart just isn't in it.

Might take a look at EQ2 though.

Still I find it more fun to use ICON and MIDS....