Doyce comments on hitting 50 on CoX, vs WOW and LotRO.
The difference between WoW and CoH is that, since then, I’ve more than doubled my /played time on Grezzk. That is to say that I’ve spent more time playing Grez AT 70 than I spent getting Grezzk TO 70. And it’s fair to say that I’m nowhere near ‘done’ with everything I could do with him in the end-game of WoW as it exists today (though perhaps I’m done with everything I can do on the server I’m on). I’m getting close, but I’m not done. (And an expansion is coming out in a few months to give me even more to do.)
I had thought that maybe WoW had the corner on this end-game thing. I enjoyed playing Lord of the Rings Online with Kate, but I was struggling with the leveling grind in the mid-40s.
Then we hit 50.
I’ve been on LotRO for a least a couple minutes (almost) every day since then, I think. There are 7 “epic” storylines to get through, and a bunch of dungeons to explore…
Certainly (as he points out) CoX doesn’t have a big amount of post-50 content. Are there things to do at the highest levels? Sure — a number of mission arcs run to 50 or beyond. There are police band missions on PI. There are things you can do.
But … yeah. People generally don’t. I’ve pulled out my two 50s on only a couple of occasions since they dinged. The content (esp. for solo/duo characters) isn’t terribly compelling.
But beyond that, what CoX has is a rich environment for alts. With all the different power combinations (and different costume options as icing on the cake), replay of content is rarely a strict replay, but something new. The game not only encourages altitis, it practically demands it.
That’s not to say that there aren’t other approaches that are perfectly legit. As Doyce notes, there’s a cubic ton of content at the top levels in LotRO (and more coming all the time). I mean, there are plenty of level 50s who haven’t even gotten into Moria yet. The very nature of the game and the Ring narrative requires a rich set of content for the top-level crowd. Indeed, it seems that, like karate, it’s only once you become a black belt that you really become a student.
And that’s pretty keen, too. To each their own, indeed.
I’ve always felt that CoX was directly opposed to the kind of content that you see in WoW, specifically NOT encouraging grinding to 50, making the journey the important part of the game.
That’s starting to change with the addition of Cimorea and the ITF and Purple enhancements. Now there’s stuff to do at 50 and grind for those enhancements.
There’s a lot to do at each level. Indeed, enough now that you simply cannot hit all the content on the way up, which does encourage replay from 1 again. And, heck, if you were doing it sequentially, the game keeps changing fast enough between issues that even with exactly the same toon it would not be the same play experience.
There’s also the Oroborous system that lets lvl 50s go back and actually be challeneged again . . .
Ouroboros bugs me. You spend all that time leveling up, and your “reward” at the end of it all is to arbitrarily lose some or all of your progress. I mostly use Ouroboros to repeat content where I can use all my powers (or lose the level 40+ powers at most).
I use PvP as my “endgame” in CoX. Yeah, it’s kinda broken (as is all MMO PvP to one degree or anther) but can be fun (when zone PvP is good, it’s very good). I’m 90% carebear, though.
I don’t care for PvP myself, but I can see where it would make for an additional challenge.
The Ouroborous stuff bugs me for the same reason — though going back and running Outbreak with your Level 50 is … humbling.