Fairly short, sweet, and to the point.
I cannot, at this point, imagine rolling up a new character for a while who isn’t starting in the Praetorian “Going Rogue” character.
Part of this is because, frankly, the CoH starting arc is so threadbare and worn that running a new toon through it would be painful. CoV is only slightly less so. Co … hmmmm … is there a convenient TLA (Three-Letter Acronym) for Going Rogue? CoR (City of Rogues)? CoP (that’s Cathedral of Pain)? CoY (City of Yellow)? Anyway, the new material is fresh, which counts for a lot.
Further, it’s so well crafted. There’s a story behind what’s going on. CoH’s early zones are are disparate micro-adventures, roughly introducing various factions and powers but without much intelligence behind them. CoV sets up the whole “Chosen One” theme, but that’s pretty monolithic.
But Going Rogue does a great job of branching adventures, and the whole “choose your morality” thing. In fact, not only is there the whole quest of whether you are a hero / vigilante / villain / rogue thing, but within Praetoria there’s the question of whether you are a Loyalist and Resistance — and even within that, you can have Loyalists who are guardians of the public welfare or just out to be publicity and power hounds, or you can have Resistance who are believers in freedom or are just in it for the anarchy.
It’s a system that puts the RP back into MMORPG. And it’s very nicely done, supported by a nice cast of characters and a world that is such a melange of cliches (bright utopia that’s actually a tyrannical dystopia except that the rebellion isn’t as wholesome and idealistic as it seems) that it plain old works for purposes of the simulation.
It’s not quite CoH 2, but it’ll do for a while.
A few other notes:
- I would spend money for some swag with the Praetorian / Emperor Cole propaganda posters. They are superb.
- I don’t know how I ever raised a Scrapper before the days of having (via vet rewards) two ranged powers and an additional melee power from the get-go. I know the vet rewards are supposed to be more QoL than game-changing, but, damn, that (and getting an early travel power) rocks.
- Have I mentioned lately how much I love how the auction house interface has evolved? Now if they just put vendors and crafting tables in the auction houses, my crafting joy would be complete.
PC Gamer reviewd GR in their latest issue (207, December 2010). They gave it 67%. Bottom line: “A confused update that ends up pleasing no one. It’s dogged by repetitive quests, but the epic new powers can’t fail to excite.”
Not quite sure where they feel the quests involved are repetitive. They are better managed and take advantage of the new story-branching technology to be significantly more interesting than low-level CoH or CoV.
“Aside from some rare and more-interesting story mission, objectives tend to range from ‘Kill the big bad guy’ to ‘Kill all the bad guys’–or, in some cases, ‘Click on these boxes that belong to the bad guys.'”
Um … sounds like most MMO mishes. At least GR includes *interesting* bad guys (and their boxes).
“[My hero] does not require assistance. He requires only a quest marker and a dozen identical mobs, preferably guarding several identical facilities in which he can unleash a series of tempestuous new abilities.”
The mobs introduced in GR are actually much tougher and require more tactics than similar levelled mobs in CoH or CoV.
The missions are progressive and are in some really interesting locations (several that take us to roof tops, etc.) that we haven’t seen in the game previously.
The expansion adds many new mobs, new tile sets and a whole slate of new storylines.
A reviewer’s trip into GR may seem like there are only a few mobs here, but one must remember that the same is true of every MMO at very low levels. This has set us up nicely for 30 more levls to open in this zone.
What he said.
Aside from the branching dialog (and actions deriving therefrom), there’s some interesting new AI that some of the mobs use (e.g., LTs that summon help targeted on people who attack them).
My main concern with Lvl 20+ activities in Praetoria is how they’ll fit “outsiders” into the overall narrative there. The currently stories work well “from scratch,” but integrating those threads into people returning to (or arriving for the first time in) Praetoria will be a bit more challenging.
I really think the reviewer is off-base here.