No time for losers
More or less on a whim, I picked up Champions Online with store credit. First impression: It's interesting, I like a lot of what they're trying to do, but I am far from sold on it. I've organized my thoughts on the first few hours of play, getting one character to level 10 and a second through the first half of the tutorial. I'm going to avoid mentioning problems with specific costume pieces or powers, because in the former case it'd fill up ten pages of "Why is there a strapless bustier when you have to put a bikini top with straps under it?" and "Why can't I put my emblem on the back of the open biker jacket?" microrants, and in the latter everything is very much in flux--apparently there was a huge 'rebalancing' patch dropped on Tuesday, out of sheer horror that people had managed to hit the level cap in the four day "preorder head start" and things will be a mess while they decide what was nerfed or buffed too much and needs to be fixed again.
The Good
--It's frickin' gorgeous. It has a very strong sense of visual style and, while that style may not be for everyone, for the most part I like it. The thick outlines don't really bother me, but don't really impress me either; while I have no problem leaving them on, I'd recommend anyone without a top-end 3D card turn them off before even starting the character creator.
--The character/costume design mode is a lot of fun to mess around with. This was kind of a given after CoH, but after playing EQ2 and FFXI and dabbling in Megami Tensei one tends to remember that "superhero" games are unique in that respect. The simple fact that nearly every item of clothing (including some that make no sense, like the Mecha Armor fragments) is available in cloth, leather and reflective-metal textures is a huge plus, and there are no spray-on items (I know it's unfair to compare what CoH started with to what was released in 2007-09, but the simple fact is that most of the female "with skin" options and anything armored from before I12 or so just looks awful now). The ability to give characters different postures and stances, and even set facial expression independently from designing the face, is awesome.
--Combat is unlike any other MMO. The momentum meter, the block button, and attacks that you charge or maintain rather than "fire/cooldown/fire" make it feel completely different from any other MMO I've played (Final Fantasy XI, Everquest II and City of Heroes long term, World of Warcraft and Megaten Imagine short term). It's closest to Megaten, since that had blocks, block-breakers and the like, but even that had attack cooldowns and a more traditional endurance meter. (For the uninitiated, in CO your energy meter has an equilibrium point determined by stats and gear, and a low-power autoattack that exists primarily to build momentum. You can fire off the same attack 32 times in a second if you don't run out of energy, but it would probably do more good to hold down the button to charge its power).
--Travel powers are fun! Again, rather a gimme. I like that each different kind of flight has its own strengths and weaknesses, and that there's an "Acrobatics" set for rooftop-hoppers that improves both running and jumping, but not to the extent of Superspeed or Superjump.
--The classless system lets you pick whatever power you want. Pretty much what it says on the tin; no archetypes means you can pick a heal from the Gadgeteer power set, attacks with both one sword and two and three kinds of ice shield. Of course, this is a double-edged sword (see below).
--A serverless environment means not having to choose between groups of friends. Another double-edged sword. CO casts aside the standard system of multiple servers in favor of having everyone on one server that creates multiple instances of each zone, and settles naming issues by permanently attaching your global @name to the end of your character name (so the name over my head would just say "Cryotechnik" but it appears as "Cryotechnik@Cliff_Hanger" in chat windows.) So no having to split your time between two groups of friends in different communities.
The Bad:
--It's pretty graphically demanding. I haven't had any problems, but I have a GeForce 9 with a half gig of RAM. I've heard a lot of people complain that it's brutal on borderline stuff, though--all those shiny surfaces and dynamic lights. That said, it hasn't given me the kind of framerate and stutter problems I get from, say, Nektulos Forest on EQ2.
--It's not very HD-friendly. I had a very hard time getting the various elements of the HUD (power tray, chatbox, the window where mission and store options appear, the radar, etc.) set up on my 22" widescreen monitor so that I could see everything important without having to physically lean to the left or right and without blocking the action. Eventually, I gave up and ran the game in 1024x768 mode in a window, which I don't feel like I should have to do. I thought it might just be the fact that I sit ridiculously close to said huge HD monitor, but bringing it up on the zone channel indicated that I was not alone. Having to go into a special "rearrange interface" mode to change things doesn't help, since it means you can't test the settings while moving elements around--you have to stop, go into Rearrange mode, click-and-drag, go back to gameplay mode, etc.
--It's easy to gimp yourself. The classless system can be pretty brutally unforgiving--your stats don't go up level-by-level. You pick two 'superstats' that affect the scaling of your damage, an Innate Ability that gives you a huge boost to one stat or smaller ones to every stat, and a few Talents that boost one stat each by a few points. Other than that, it's determined entirely by which pieces of gear you pick up, buy or craft--and you can only have nine pieces of gear. So while you can pick any power you can "afford," it's very important to make sure that you aren't picking powers with contradictory base stats or you'll be utterly hosed. And retcons (respecs) are costly since you have to buy the right to undo each power, talent, advantage, etc. individually. Additionally, it can be hard to know which sets to look in if you want to specialize (say, make a healer without dipping into Sorcery), and from level one to five every character will be all offense all the time since all you get is your momentum builder and basic attack--and then you have to work within the frameworks you started from (Tier One powers require you either have a power from the framework you're buying from, or two non-momentum powers. So if you start with the Gadgets momentum and Ice basic attack, your level 5 power can be a Gadgets or Ice power, but you have to wait til level 8 to buy from any other set.) I'm not even going to get into stances and alternate builds and stuff, since I'm only level 10.
--The tutorial is too long. Not as bad as the Everquest 2 tutorial, which took me a good eight hours the first time I did it, but it's still too long. You start off in the midst of an alien invasion, do some quests (some required, some optional), and then you get sent to a Crisis Zone (which is a separate version of one of the two main wilderness zones, except in the middle of a huge event.) You don't really get to the "main" zones til level 8-10 depending, and it can take quite a while. I'd much rather see the "You can never return to this area" areas cut down to the first tutorial, so you can go to Millenium City right away and make the Crisis Zones something you can do at your leisure up 'til, say, level 15.
--The serverless environment hurts community. In most games, each server has its own personality--official or unofficial designations of RP, PVP and RPVP notwithstanding, over time each subset of the game's overall playerbase tends to congeal in certain ways and certain places. A serverless environment makes that much harder--you've got more potential to meet people in the abstract, but it's harder to keep up with individuals, set up meeting places for open RP, etc.
--The documentation is lacking. The paper manual is a quick setup guide with no info on the actual game. The online manual at champions-online.com is a basic guide to character-building terminology and procedure. Nowhere is there a description of which zones are appropriate to which level, or even the names of the currency. (When you beat an enemy, you get X Resources, but in your inventory or the shop interface it appears as three different coins, labeled G, N and L from greatest to smallest. I assume 100L=1N and 100N=1G, but have to take it on faith because it's how other games do it. And what do the letters stand for? This is just silly.)
--There aren't enough zones. They're BIG zones, but still less than CoH launched with in terms of area and stuff-to-do.
--Not enough instances. Jack Emmert said shortly after the transformation from MUO to Champions Online that they had "abused" instanced dungeons in CoH, and the result was that ninety percent of the time a player would be in a zone with a max occupancy of eight. That's true, but for a modern-setting game in a big city at least half of your stuff should be inside buildings with just your buddies if for no other reason than to limit the number of "beat 10 Irradiates out in Uranium Flats" missions.
--The voice acting is bad. I used to complain about Everquest 2's voiceover, with name-brand VAs like Corey Burton, Steve Blum and Grey Delisle for NPCs, throwing me off when my mind would say "Hey, that Ratonga is INVADER ZIM!" (That was never a problem with single-player games or cartoons, but bugged me in EQ2 I guess because of the immersion factor involved in an MMO.)
I withdraw my complaint.
--Teaming is non-intuitive. Instead of everyone doing the same mission and getting rewarded as though it was theirs (but without the arc progress), groups work on the "quest-sharing" principle used in fantasy games, where you have to . This can be problematic, especially given reports that once you've done an instanced mission you can't go back in there to help someone else.
The playerbase is insane, even by MMO standards. Okay, so making changes to the basic XP curve, buffing enemies and nerfing a number of powers on launch day after a 4-day headstart probably wasn't the best idea, especially just before a holiday weekend when they were going to be sending reps to two different cons. But the "ruined FOREVER" contingent is so loud and rabid that it's impossible to have a serious conversation about the game. It's fairly evident that a sizable number of people want to be able to solo groups of 50, and anything less is "making my superhero a wussy sidekick." Avoid the fora at all costs, at least until the devs get back to the office and it becomes evident what will and won't change from the 9/1 patch.
So, do I recommend it? I don't know. The game has a lot of problems, some very deep down ones. But I have to say, I am enjoying myself. Ask me again in a month when it's time to either give them my debit card number or write the experience off as a loss.
The Good
--It's frickin' gorgeous. It has a very strong sense of visual style and, while that style may not be for everyone, for the most part I like it. The thick outlines don't really bother me, but don't really impress me either; while I have no problem leaving them on, I'd recommend anyone without a top-end 3D card turn them off before even starting the character creator.
--The character/costume design mode is a lot of fun to mess around with. This was kind of a given after CoH, but after playing EQ2 and FFXI and dabbling in Megami Tensei one tends to remember that "superhero" games are unique in that respect. The simple fact that nearly every item of clothing (including some that make no sense, like the Mecha Armor fragments) is available in cloth, leather and reflective-metal textures is a huge plus, and there are no spray-on items (I know it's unfair to compare what CoH started with to what was released in 2007-09, but the simple fact is that most of the female "with skin" options and anything armored from before I12 or so just looks awful now). The ability to give characters different postures and stances, and even set facial expression independently from designing the face, is awesome.
--Combat is unlike any other MMO. The momentum meter, the block button, and attacks that you charge or maintain rather than "fire/cooldown/fire" make it feel completely different from any other MMO I've played (Final Fantasy XI, Everquest II and City of Heroes long term, World of Warcraft and Megaten Imagine short term). It's closest to Megaten, since that had blocks, block-breakers and the like, but even that had attack cooldowns and a more traditional endurance meter. (For the uninitiated, in CO your energy meter has an equilibrium point determined by stats and gear, and a low-power autoattack that exists primarily to build momentum. You can fire off the same attack 32 times in a second if you don't run out of energy, but it would probably do more good to hold down the button to charge its power).
--Travel powers are fun! Again, rather a gimme. I like that each different kind of flight has its own strengths and weaknesses, and that there's an "Acrobatics" set for rooftop-hoppers that improves both running and jumping, but not to the extent of Superspeed or Superjump.
--The classless system lets you pick whatever power you want. Pretty much what it says on the tin; no archetypes means you can pick a heal from the Gadgeteer power set, attacks with both one sword and two and three kinds of ice shield. Of course, this is a double-edged sword (see below).
--A serverless environment means not having to choose between groups of friends. Another double-edged sword. CO casts aside the standard system of multiple servers in favor of having everyone on one server that creates multiple instances of each zone, and settles naming issues by permanently attaching your global @name to the end of your character name (so the name over my head would just say "Cryotechnik" but it appears as "Cryotechnik@Cliff_Hanger" in chat windows.) So no having to split your time between two groups of friends in different communities.
The Bad:
--It's pretty graphically demanding. I haven't had any problems, but I have a GeForce 9 with a half gig of RAM. I've heard a lot of people complain that it's brutal on borderline stuff, though--all those shiny surfaces and dynamic lights. That said, it hasn't given me the kind of framerate and stutter problems I get from, say, Nektulos Forest on EQ2.
--It's not very HD-friendly. I had a very hard time getting the various elements of the HUD (power tray, chatbox, the window where mission and store options appear, the radar, etc.) set up on my 22" widescreen monitor so that I could see everything important without having to physically lean to the left or right and without blocking the action. Eventually, I gave up and ran the game in 1024x768 mode in a window, which I don't feel like I should have to do. I thought it might just be the fact that I sit ridiculously close to said huge HD monitor, but bringing it up on the zone channel indicated that I was not alone. Having to go into a special "rearrange interface" mode to change things doesn't help, since it means you can't test the settings while moving elements around--you have to stop, go into Rearrange mode, click-and-drag, go back to gameplay mode, etc.
--It's easy to gimp yourself. The classless system can be pretty brutally unforgiving--your stats don't go up level-by-level. You pick two 'superstats' that affect the scaling of your damage, an Innate Ability that gives you a huge boost to one stat or smaller ones to every stat, and a few Talents that boost one stat each by a few points. Other than that, it's determined entirely by which pieces of gear you pick up, buy or craft--and you can only have nine pieces of gear. So while you can pick any power you can "afford," it's very important to make sure that you aren't picking powers with contradictory base stats or you'll be utterly hosed. And retcons (respecs) are costly since you have to buy the right to undo each power, talent, advantage, etc. individually. Additionally, it can be hard to know which sets to look in if you want to specialize (say, make a healer without dipping into Sorcery), and from level one to five every character will be all offense all the time since all you get is your momentum builder and basic attack--and then you have to work within the frameworks you started from (Tier One powers require you either have a power from the framework you're buying from, or two non-momentum powers. So if you start with the Gadgets momentum and Ice basic attack, your level 5 power can be a Gadgets or Ice power, but you have to wait til level 8 to buy from any other set.) I'm not even going to get into stances and alternate builds and stuff, since I'm only level 10.
--The tutorial is too long. Not as bad as the Everquest 2 tutorial, which took me a good eight hours the first time I did it, but it's still too long. You start off in the midst of an alien invasion, do some quests (some required, some optional), and then you get sent to a Crisis Zone (which is a separate version of one of the two main wilderness zones, except in the middle of a huge event.) You don't really get to the "main" zones til level 8-10 depending, and it can take quite a while. I'd much rather see the "You can never return to this area" areas cut down to the first tutorial, so you can go to Millenium City right away and make the Crisis Zones something you can do at your leisure up 'til, say, level 15.
--The serverless environment hurts community. In most games, each server has its own personality--official or unofficial designations of RP, PVP and RPVP notwithstanding, over time each subset of the game's overall playerbase tends to congeal in certain ways and certain places. A serverless environment makes that much harder--you've got more potential to meet people in the abstract, but it's harder to keep up with individuals, set up meeting places for open RP, etc.
--The documentation is lacking. The paper manual is a quick setup guide with no info on the actual game. The online manual at champions-online.com is a basic guide to character-building terminology and procedure. Nowhere is there a description of which zones are appropriate to which level, or even the names of the currency. (When you beat an enemy, you get X Resources, but in your inventory or the shop interface it appears as three different coins, labeled G, N and L from greatest to smallest. I assume 100L=1N and 100N=1G, but have to take it on faith because it's how other games do it. And what do the letters stand for? This is just silly.)
--There aren't enough zones. They're BIG zones, but still less than CoH launched with in terms of area and stuff-to-do.
--Not enough instances. Jack Emmert said shortly after the transformation from MUO to Champions Online that they had "abused" instanced dungeons in CoH, and the result was that ninety percent of the time a player would be in a zone with a max occupancy of eight. That's true, but for a modern-setting game in a big city at least half of your stuff should be inside buildings with just your buddies if for no other reason than to limit the number of "beat 10 Irradiates out in Uranium Flats" missions.
--The voice acting is bad. I used to complain about Everquest 2's voiceover, with name-brand VAs like Corey Burton, Steve Blum and Grey Delisle for NPCs, throwing me off when my mind would say "Hey, that Ratonga is INVADER ZIM!" (That was never a problem with single-player games or cartoons, but bugged me in EQ2 I guess because of the immersion factor involved in an MMO.)
I withdraw my complaint.
--Teaming is non-intuitive. Instead of everyone doing the same mission and getting rewarded as though it was theirs (but without the arc progress), groups work on the "quest-sharing" principle used in fantasy games, where you have to . This can be problematic, especially given reports that once you've done an instanced mission you can't go back in there to help someone else.
The playerbase is insane, even by MMO standards. Okay, so making changes to the basic XP curve, buffing enemies and nerfing a number of powers on launch day after a 4-day headstart probably wasn't the best idea, especially just before a holiday weekend when they were going to be sending reps to two different cons. But the "ruined FOREVER" contingent is so loud and rabid that it's impossible to have a serious conversation about the game. It's fairly evident that a sizable number of people want to be able to solo groups of 50, and anything less is "making my superhero a wussy sidekick." Avoid the fora at all costs, at least until the devs get back to the office and it becomes evident what will and won't change from the 9/1 patch.
So, do I recommend it? I don't know. The game has a lot of problems, some very deep down ones. But I have to say, I am enjoying myself. Ask me again in a month when it's time to either give them my debit card number or write the experience off as a loss.