Comments:
- For all that the NCSoft launcher used to hang up on my machine while not in use, it did do a fabulous job of updating content while I was away. It seems really primative to have the CO launcher start off by saying, “Nope, can’t play now, gotta download N mb of updates first, sorry.”
- Ran through the tutorial again, and, yeah, a lot of the side missions have been removed for some reason (to keep people from leveling up too fast?). And it still seems like there’s a lot of info that isn’t covered well.
- The character creator has a tendency to let you pick things you can’t, and then not warn you before you try and save your character. Hilarity and “character creation failed” messages ensue, dropping you back to square 1.
- While I like the UI assistance for finding where your next mission is, I find the ability to end up with many, many missions to be distracting (especially since they seem to age so quickly).
- I like that you are not necessarily stuck on rails down a mission. On the other hand, it sometimes seems like there are too many directions to go — random new contacts pop up (while you still have a full tablet of missions), and often your missions send you to contacts (or back to contacts) offering you a few more missions. Option paralysis …
- I’m already finding the uneven application of (sometimes dubious) humor to be irksome. Not that CoH was unrelentingly grim or serious (e.g., the names of the detective pairs in each of the zones), but its humor was a raised eyebrow or perhaps a wink while taking the drama seriously. CO does all but a fourth-wall breaking mugging for the camera. E.g., the cut scene meeting of all the criminal gangs in the West Side with the mystical Oriental villain being unable to pronounce “Millennium” …
- Travel powers are immediately available — but the fact you get slowed to a crawl if you draw any aggro makes anything except flight (and sometimes not even that) a royal pain in the ass. Which is a shame, because Superspeed is much more practical in Millennium City than in Paragon (or the Rogue Isles) … and the Acrobatics travel power is awesome, visually. (Margie is really disliking Superjump.)
- Action is faster than in CoH, which is probably a good thing.
- The userid/login security stuff is … not as friendly as it could be. Between Cryptic vs Perfect World IDs, and verifying computers, and all that (and, yes, I understand the whys and wherefores), Margie’s had a heck of a time getting in to even play. Which is not encouraging.
- I like build-up powers, and spew-out powers. It’s a nice mechanic. I am seriously unfond of having to “block”. Really.
- There seem to be a dozen different leveling mechanisms — powers pop in, attributes to powers can be added, new little extra powerlet stuff can be incremented. It all feels very nickel-and-dime … incrementing a few percentage points here and there with no real sense of major achievement when you level, just nudges and tweaks to what you have. And maybe part is the F2P (which doesn’t let me choose non-railroaded classes), but that would make things even worse.
- On the other hand, it’s nice to be able to level without being at a trainer.
- Sure seems like the population is a lot heavier. Which on the one hand is encouraging. And on the other hand makes going to hero-populated areas (Renaissance Center, the Power House) irksome.
- Inventory slots. Multiple and different types of inventory slots. Yes, CoH had slots of various sorts … but if I was on a mission and was picking up stuff, or even being given temporary powers … it didn’t impact anything else I was doing. I’ve never liked inventory / encumbrance limits, in any system, and CO seems to have them a-plenty.
- I do still like the graphics, though fading over range seems much more obvious than it was in CoH.
I’m finding CO moderately entertaining, but not gripping. Part of that may be because we’re struggling with the constraints of the F2P system. Perhaps it’s the rampant (voluntary) P2P in the streets (heroes? really?). I dunno.
I’m enjoying what I’m doing, but am I enjoying it as much as I’d like to? Or as I (cough) did with CoH? No … not really. And does that make me want to renew my subscription (and access all those other characters I had rolled)? Not … sure yet.