Well, with the Open Beta ostensibly started, the NDA for the Closed Beta is turned off, and folks are indeed commenting.
The comments at Champions Online NDA has dropped – Massively have a lot of the initial impressions. Not surprisingly, they consist of (a) “Ew, it’s lame, it’s console gaming, it’s buggy, it’s icky, Cryptic blew it, nobody will ever play this” and (b) “Zowee, I love it, I’m signing up for a lifetime subscription.”
As Mark Twain put it …
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that make horse races.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar (1894)
Specific comments of substance seem to be:
- The character creator is awesome.
- There’s a shortage of original content of an epic, thematic nature — though, of course, it’s the start of the game. I’ll be trying to get a feel for this as we start playing.
- There’s little to encourage grouping. Which is the opposite of some concerns I’d heard of previously (and doesn’t particularly bother me).
- It feels to much like a “console” game. This seems associated with doing lots of key presses to build up and use powers, plus movement within combat, plus repetitiveness of combat. Not sure how that is all that different from CoX. The “controls” are described as console-like. I’m not quite sure what this means (I suppose I will find out — but, honestly, it’s not clear to me what in the
- Power balance is off. Well, that’s often a matter of taste, and is always something true in betas and the early versions of any game (cf. CoX).
- Powers are too much the same. Which is the risk of balancing power sets too much, the flip side of the previous item.
- Servers instance too much, reducing city population in any instance excessively. Again, something to watch out for, and something Cryptic can adjust if need be.
- A lot of debate (pro and con) over the reduction of roles — tank, healer, etc. — in the game. Again, I think some of this is gameplay expectation and some of it will be play style. I look forward to getting a better sense of it.
- Some concern about non-instanced missions and drawbacks to that (boss camping, kill stealing) that I’ve seen in other MMOs. Again, to be watched for.
- Some folks hate the look of the game. Other think it’s da bomb. The former tend to be more of the “I don’t like it, therefore it is an abomination before Man and God,” which is tiresome in politics, let along in gaming.
- Micro-transactions suck. Well, they can suck depending on how they are applied. I don’t think they are intrinsically sucky (I’d rather have everything covered by the monthly cost, but …). They can easily be abused, though. Most discussion of this, though, is on a binary Evil/Not-Evil basis.
An interesting comment was made that, once the Xbox console version comes out, we may not see much in the way of big content patches. I have no idea how updating on the Xbox works; if it cannot handle large content patches (new zones, etc.) or even new game system mods, then that would in fact be a concern.
Massively did give their reviewer beta impressions, too. What’d we think? Staff impressions of the Champions Online beta – Massively. By and large, while touching on some of the above, they were pretty positive.
Comments there don’t touch on anything new, other than “Cryptic sucks!” “No, you suck!” “Nuh-uh, CO sucks!” “Nuh-uh, WoW sucks!” “You suck for saying I suck for saying CO sucks!”
Also, there are plenty of folks who seem to think the game sucks (or will suck) because of the cluster regarding the downloads last night. While the problems may be indicative of Cryptic’s ability to support the system, they don’t have much to do directly with whether it’s a good game or not.
I’m looking forward to actually playing this … albeit maybe sometime tonight. Or maybe over lunch …
A few more notes I picked up.
I’m concerned about the 8 alts you can have, given the amazing abilities of the character creator. This appears to be a place where they plan to milk micro-transactions. If I feel this is seriously cramping my creative style, I will be quite cross.
A rather negative post-NDA review here: Keen and Graev’s Gaming Blog » Blog Archive » Champions Online: Why this Beta Tester won’t be playing:
* Zones are all redundantly instanced and capped at a low number of players per instance (ex. 24 players). No “world”. Disconnected feel. Not “massively multiplayer”. [This population cap is worrisome. Though, to be honest, it’s probably more realistic than a “city of heroes.”]
* Mundane combat. It’s all flash and no substance. Feels wonky and uncomfortable. Killing monsters is easy, boring, and excessively repetitive. [As opposed to “Go, Hunt, Kill Skullz?”]
* Content is boring. Quests are not engaging; worse than the standard “kill x of this”. Story might as well not exist. [I’ve read this, and I’ve read others that disagree. We’ll see.]
* Zones are cramped. They feel like mini-modules of force fed content. [Need to play to evaluate this, though I’ll keep it in mind.]
* Gameplay feels like a beat’em up with all the mindless… beating up. [Unlike “Go, Hunt, Kill Skullz”?]
* Feels like a console port mess that falls short of the quality standard – probably due to losing their original IP. [This doesn’t seem a cogent comment.]
* Abilities are rather boring and unimpressive, but the customization is nice.
* It’s basically a copy of City of Heroes on so many levels, except it loses something along the way that would have made it justifiable. [Which would be?]
Reading the article (and comments), isn’t that much more illuminating — it’s not “community” enough, it’s “boring,” the developers are obviously dolts because they can’t see what’s obvious to us, etc.
Man, I want to really enjoy this game just so that I can seriously thumb my nose at some of the attitudes.
There’s a fair amount of commentary that the game improves post-tutorial, for a variety of reasons, and various accusations that some of the more critical reviewers simply aren’t playing it far enough. (This gets countered by critics saying, “Well, if it doesn’t grab me in the first three levels, it’s their fault” — which is true, perhaps, from a ideal, but isn’t necessarily true from perspective of the life of playing a particular title, and potentially quite shortsighted. In some ways, it’s akin to the “Well, if this TV show isn’t a hit by episode three, we’re pulling the plug on it.”)
The “cramped zones” and lack of content complaints seem akin (on hearing them) to early complaints re CoX. If you look at the map and consider the number of zones — including places like the Hollows, Striga, and the higher-level zones — that weren’t around in Issue 1, it’s remarkable. It’s hard to realize how much the game has evolved in the last five years.
I haven’t gotten far enough into the game to really comment a lot on it. Still in the tutorial. The controls seem a little odd to me. If I can get back to where it asked you what kind of layout you want to use, I might switch. (I chose the CO recommended one.) Other than that, the look is a little too cartoony for my tastes. I like COH’s better. And I really didn’t see any way to customize how my powers look, but I might have missed it.
Still…it’s alive! Looking forward to cranking it up tonight.
“In CoX we had those wonderful little inspirations that went directly to our own tray. In CO, those drop out into the open, so that it’s a race between the members of your own team. (or possible someone just running by) to grab them.”
I did notice that in the tutorial, and it was very troubling. You kill someone and a heal pops up, then someone else grabs it. Lots of stealing of kills, too. I figured that would be something MMO’s learned to avoid by now. In LOTRO (sorry for the continued comparison) if I hit a mob first, then it’s my kill no matter who else piles on. Others can reduce my XP by “helping” but they can’t steal the goal of my mission (which happened several times in the brief time I spent in game). And drops shouldn’t hang out there for anyone to steal. That’s just wrong.
I REALLY dislike that the rewards can be stolen.
“C” menu + Options + Controls (I think) — lets you choose the alternate keyboard mappings.
I dislike that a lot, too. Plus — not triffically heroic.
But only remap one of the mouse axes. The other one completely flips the mouse action. (sorry, can’t remember if it’s the X or Y)
ReCAPTCHA: Experienced, Fins
You want to invert the X axis (that’s up and down). If you invert the Y axis, your left and right get messed up. 😛