Yeah, we still play City of Heroes

[spatch]

Sometimes this game just gives beautiful sights.

Lux Amperes moonshot Click for a zoomed-out version

Comments

[mykwud.livejournal.com]

OOH, how is it sofar? How long've you been playing? I'm so eager to try that, but only after they let players becmoe villains (which the devs said wouldn't be for about a year or more after launch)

[spatch]

I've been playing, off and on, since shortly after the launch in May. I took two months or so off in the summer but they've recently released "Issue 2", a patch that fixed several of the issues that I had with the gameplay and also added a buncha new fun content. They really seem keen on making sure there's things to do in between level grinds (which, really, have been few and far between.)

I suffer from alt-itis, though, which means I have more fun creating heroes than actually playing all the way to level 40 or 50 or whatever. The character in the screenshot is actually the character who's gone the furthest; gonna hit level 20 tonight and after that we can go on a quest and get a cape.

The game's real strengths are the great comic book setting and the character generation. The mission system is also pretty nifty and I enjoy being able to solo, as unfortunately, like many MMORPGs, the majority of "pubbies" are morons I want nothing to do with. I'd join a supergroup if I wanted to group with smart people, but I'd still rather just solo my missions and then hang around and chat.

Connectivity is still an issue, though, and I'm not sure how much longer we can ascribe that to "MMORPG growing pains." Busy nights, especially weekends, overload the servers to the point of frequent and random disconnects. Sometimes the disconnects keep you in-game, just frozen on the map. These are the most common but also the most dangerous, especially if it happens in the middle of a fight. The other disconnect takes you out of the game entirely, which is very annoying as it resets the indoor mission you were on (if, indeed, you were on one when you got disconnected.)

Death/knockouts are handled nicely, with no experience loss. Instead you get into "experience debt" of some arbitrary amount and, in subsequent fights, half the exp you earn goes towards paying off that debt. Once gone, you gain all the experience as usual. It's a nice way to provide a penalty for death but not impede your progress entirely. You can't lose levels or powers, at least, not against your will. Higher-level characters can "sidekick" a lower-level, bringing the lower one almost up to the level of the, er, sidekicker. Conversely, a higher-level character can also bring himself down to the level of the lower one (this is one of the newer developments) so that he can help his buddy do a mission with a level requirement. It's a nice way for friends and supergroups to be able to play with each other even if one outlevels the other.

It's a nicely-crafted game with a fun premise and a very involving backstory (and even the actual paper comic book you get with your subscription has improved with the last issue) and just a good way to blow off steam for a few hours, or a whole day. Not that I've had a whole day for MMORPG pursuits in a long, long, long time. (Sup Tower of Veeshan and Plane of Fear, Mr. Frotz Nitfol misses y'all.)