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The Beta starts next week for the Fileplanet subscribers and the pre-order people. There are various previews around the web and I wanted to start at thread with its release soon at hand and see who will be playing.

Preview Link
The above is a link to the Shacknews preview and the below is from that preview.

Shacknews wrote: There is a new set of archetypes for your villain as well: Brute, Stalker, Mastermind, Dominator, and Corruptor. To a certain extent they correspond with the group dynamic roles fulfilled by the various hero archetypes, but in various different ways. For example, the Mastermind can summon in a variety of different henchmen depending on the specific origin and powers of the character. These range from robots to special ops teams (who are dropped in from helecopters) to zombies to even ninja. Being able to call in zombies and ninja at a moment's notice in the thick of battle has to be a plus in anybody's book.

Thats right, you can summon ninjas to do your dirty work And one of the main reasons I plan to give this game a try.

Ok, now I have to go talk with EB. They didn't give me a pre-order box when I pre-ordered it. Makes me a little suspicious. How exactly am I supposed to get my pre-order goodies, or get into beta without that??

Can't wait, it's pre-ordered and I've applied for my Fileplanet access key

And, even better, CoV will not cost anything extra to play if you already subscribe to CoH!

Oh, and I'm fairly certain CoV's release is not 'soon at hand.' We're still pretty damned early into closed beta.

Shadowhawk wrote:And, even better, CoV will not cost anything extra to play if you already subscribe to CoH!

Oh, and I'm fairly certain CoV's release is not 'soon at hand.' We're still pretty damned early into closed beta.

It has a ship date and a CD on shelves date.

Would love to get this, I like the overall idea of CoH but their leveling system sucks really bad and is a huge grind.

Screw leveling in CoV, I'm just gonna build an awesome base and watch as people try to infiltrate it. MWAHAHAHA!!!

Mr Bean wrote:

Shadowhawk wrote:And, even better, CoV will not cost anything extra to play if you already subscribe to CoH!

Oh, and I'm fairly certain CoV's release is not 'soon at hand.' We're still pretty damned early into closed beta.

It has a ship date and a CD on shelves date.

Those dates are wrong.

Trust me. The game is NOT ready for a 10/31/05 release. The closed beta has only been going on for about eight weeks (they still don't have the servers up round-the-clock), and they haven't even announced a timeframe for public beta.
There is no official release date anywhere on CoV's or Cryptic's website.

Meest wrote:Would love to get this, I like the overall idea of CoH but their leveling system sucks really bad and is a huge grind.

Sucks compared to what? Every other MMORPG has similar, often worse grinds.

I've been playing the beta for a while now. It's alright. Basically a cooler version of the original.

Shadowhawk wrote:

Meest wrote:Would love to get this, I like the overall idea of CoH but their leveling system sucks really bad and is a huge grind.

Sucks compared to what? Every other MMORPG has similar, often worse grinds.

CoH comes close to Lineage 2 in the most brutal boring grinds. CoH has a few templates for internal instances that you repeat over and over, it's really bad. CoH was the first MMO I didn't even max out before I quit. DAOC ~7 days to max level, WoW ~2months, I think I played CoH for 4months and got into the 40s. I like most of CoH but I see it really hard to balance PvP with the current setup, and I would try if it wouldn't take so long just to get to play the end game.

Meest wrote:

Shadowhawk wrote:

Meest wrote:Would love to get this, I like the overall idea of CoH but their leveling system sucks really bad and is a huge grind.

Sucks compared to what? Every other MMORPG has similar, often worse grinds.

CoH comes close to Lineage 2 in the most brutal boring grinds. CoH has a few templates for internal instances that you repeat over and over, it's really bad. CoH was the first MMO I didn't even max out before I quit. DAOC ~7 days to max level, WoW ~2months, I think I played CoH for 4months and got into the 40s. I like most of CoH but I see it really hard to balance PvP with the current setup, and I would try if it wouldn't take so long just to get to play the end game.

CoH is one of the easier MMO's to level in, and the grind isn't that bad. Grinding 24 professions on Galaxies to get Jedi, back when the holocron grinds were there to help you unlock Jedi, and still not get it, now thats a grind.
Course it all depends on your play style and how interested you are in the game, and how much commitment your willing to put into it.

Well, they lifted NDA, so here are some screenshots!

My secondary character, Aconitum. He's a L8 Plant/Thorns Dominator.
http://www.reprehensible.net/~shadwhawk ... onitum.jpg

The NPC defense units of CoV
http://www.reprehensible.net/~shadwhawk ... %20Bot.jpg

Mr. Yuk's henchbots boogie down
http://www.reprehensible.net/~shadwhawk ... Boogie.jpg

Mr. Yuk doing what he loves
http://www.reprehensible.net/~shadwhawk ... ermind.jpg

My primary character, Mr. Yuk. He's a L21 Robotics/Poisons Mastermind.
http://www.reprehensible.net/~shadwhawk ... %20Yuk.jpg

My team preparing as we enter a mission. Since pets can't follow in or out of missions, we have to resummon and buff them all. There are two Robotics MMs and a Ninja MM present right then. Two of the robots are undergoing upgrades.
http://www.reprehensible.net/~shadwhawk ... ration.jpg

Damnable heroes!
http://www.reprehensible.net/~shadwhawk ... agdoll.jpg

Haahh! Hah... Perioxide? LOL! Fun stuff. But my question remains... Ninjas were are they Mastermind?

Mr Bean wrote:Haahh! Hah... Perioxide? LOL! Fun stuff. But my question remains... Ninjas were are they Mastermind?

The type of minions you spawn as a mastermind is dependant on your origin. Tech will spawn robots, and IIRC, Natural will spawn Ninjas.

Shadowhawk wrote: Sucks compared to what? Every other MMORPG has similar, often worse grinds.

Guild Wars doesn't. Levels just seemed to come naturally.

Hotfoot wrote:

Mr Bean wrote:Haahh! Hah... Perioxide? LOL! Fun stuff. But my question remains... Ninjas were are they Mastermind?

The type of minions you spawn as a mastermind is dependant on your origin. Tech will spawn robots, and IIRC, Natural will spawn Ninjas.

Actually you only have to choose the proper powerset for what type of henchmen you want. So to get ninjas you choose the Ninja powerset, with an included Bow for personal protection. Robotics get a laser rifle, necromancy gets black magic, and mercenaries get a submachinegun.

McNum wrote:

Hotfoot wrote:

Mr Bean wrote:Haahh! Hah... Perioxide? LOL! Fun stuff. But my question remains... Ninjas were are they Mastermind?

The type of minions you spawn as a mastermind is dependant on your origin. Tech will spawn robots, and IIRC, Natural will spawn Ninjas.

Actually you only have to choose the proper powerset for what type of henchmen you want. So to get ninjas you choose the Ninja powerset, with an included Bow for personal protection. Robotics get a laser rifle, necromancy gets black magic, and mercenaries get a submachinegun.

Confimred, its tons of fun having my ninjas doing my bidding. Going to try Mercs next. Piff who wants superpowers! I got ninjas!

I stand very much corrected.

The game is certainly different enough from City of Heroes for it to be worthwhile, though one has to ask...what of City of Heroes? Villians are noticably more powerful than Heroes, frankly, so far they seem a bit more fun to play (despite the lack of a pure blaster class), and the missions are more innovative and fun.

I've been considering getting this Expaddon, and I'm leaning even more strongly towards it now, but I have to wonder if I'll even bother playing a hero anymore.

Of course, the crafting system I hate with an untold passion. The game didn't need a crafting system before, and as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't need one now. If I could veto it, I would. No no no no no!

Been playing all night now. Lvl 7(BlackAdder of course) on the second server hit the Port when I logged out.


Ok one can't say how much fun the Mastermind class is. I'm already macroed to all hell so my henchmen into the frey and sit back hosing the enemy with gunfire as my troops let loose as well.

I got in a team at the end there, one Stalker and three Masterminds. Normaly just four people, but with the MM we had ten people. We could easily charge groups twice our size and wipe them out as each hench tied down at least one mob and distracted another. With me was another Merc Mastermind and a Robot Mastermind who had their shit togther so much it was impressive as they easily grabbed argo for half the group then started juggling targets. Effectly they were thier own two teams yet could still turn around and toss a heal in occasionaly on the Stalker.

It was impressive. It was awe inspiring and it was @#$@$ laggy.

Just a quick FYI, this morning they announced the Pre-Order subscribers are getting their Beta invites and the servers will be running 24/7 (beta issues notwithstanding) from tonight

Hotfoot wrote:The game is certainly different enough from City of Heroes for it to be worthwhile, though one has to ask...what of City of Heroes?

Apparently a lot of the City of Villains upgrades, both graphical and gameplay, are going to spill over into City of Heroes.

The CoH community rep. said that when Issue 6 "Along Came a Spider" is released onto the Test server it will be easy to switch between CoVBeta and CoHTest since the two will be very similar. So they're getting ready to make the two games sync up.

A question: Mr Bean mentioned macroing. Does this mean a game finally has scripting for combat? If so, how sophisticated can the conditions be?

Pre-order beta! Woot!