City Of Heroes

[Lord Poe]

Is it any good? Can you punch skyscrapers down? Anything like that? Is it strictly an online game? Is it FUN?

[m112880]

yea its good

[McNum]

Is it any good? Can you punch skyscrapers down? Anything like that? Is it strictly an online game? Is it FUN?

Good? Yes. Skyscrper knocking? No. Other environmental damage? No. Fun? You bet!

I've been playing CoH for 8 months and it's one of the best MMOs I've played. (Okay I've only played SWG other than this). The beauty of CoH is in its simplicity. First of all there's little to no loot. Well not for the first 45 levels at least... So there's little camping going on. Secondly building a gimped hero is difficult although some hero builds can do very impressive feats... That'll probably get nerfed.

The superhero theme is refreshing. Instead of fighting the common Giant Rats of other MMOs you start right of the bat with purse snathcers and super powered street gangs. Of course aliens and international conspiracies are later in the game...

But... I think the one thing that keeps me playing it is the people. Since there's very little loot and money is easy to get most of the 1337 kids have gone elsewhere. So people are generally pretty friendly. So are the GMs. They're very fast acting (as in within an hour, usually within 15 minutes) and seem very polite and friendly. It's almost like they care about the players.

Also the Dev team is suprisingly open towards the players. They communicate a lot on the official forums and do take suggestions from players seriously. For example... PvP is coming soon. How do the Devs test it? They issue an open challege on the boards to come play with and against them om the test server. I've never seen that before.

Hm... I guess that did kind of sound like a big advertisement... Let me give a short version:

Pros:

• No Loot
  Easy to use interface
  Fast, yet simple combat
  Decent setting
  Best character creator in any MMO
  Good GM staff
  Decent Dev team
  Flight

Cons:

• No Loot
  Too simple combat
  No capes before level 20
  Hard to find any good names left
  Mission can get repetative

I think that's about it.

City of Heroes isn't for everyone, though. The lack of loot and the simpler combat might turn some people off from the game.

[RogueIce]

yea its good

Detail. Like can I punch a building down?

And what if I want to be an overpowered non super hero type, like a certain caped crusader? Can I do that, or must I have a power?

And what if I want to be something other than a hero...

[McNum]

And what if I want to be an overpowered non super hero type, like a certain caped crusader? Can I do that, or must I have a power?

And what if I want to be something other than a hero...

I assume you mean Batman? As long as you don't call him Batman and avoid making a costume that's too close to the original I think I know what build you want.

Natural origin (origins are just for flavor, although Naturals start out fighing Nazis, I mean "The Council") Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Scrapper with the Stealth Power Pool and the Weapon Mastery Epic pool. That's a fast moving stealth hand to hand fighter that can throw exploding shuriken. Close enough for you? You'd want a way to get around fast, though, and vehicles aren't in yet. Neither are hero lairs. Aslo the detective part of Bats isn't in yet. But it'll be in a few months.

Also you can only be a Hero for now... City of Villains should be out this year, though.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

This is from a person who got bored and quit the game long ago. The game is a lot of fun for a while (a month for me), then it gets old because it's repetative and your actions don't mean squat. To be fair, this is true of every MMORPG so if you like the genre that you might not find COH to be any worse in this regard.

The powers are cool the first few times you see them, and the character generator is amazingly good, easily the highlight of the game. It's also playable in small sittings, unlike most MMOs where you're basically committed to playing for hours on end because of the time involved in getting with a group and traveling to the right bashing zone. In COH, finding a group usually only takes a few minutes, and it doesn't take long to get where you're going.

But in the end, it's just an MMORPG. You have few HP and do little damage at low levels, and have lots of HP and do heaps of damage at high levels. You spend all your time traipsing around bashing zones fighting essentially the same fight thousands or millions of times in the neverending quest for the next level. Even the randomly generated missions get old quickly when you realize that there are a very limited number of level layouts.

I guess it comes down to preference. If you like MMORPGs, these things won't bother you. Otherwise, it's not going to redefine your views on the genre.

[Lord Poe]

Thanks, all. So I'm assuming there's no single-player game? Online only?

[McNum]

Thanks, all. So I'm assuming there's no single-player game? Online only?

Yup. Online only with the usual $15 monthly fee.

[Shadowhawk]

Always looking for an excuse to pimp my screenshots.

http://www.reprehensible.net/~shadwhawk/coh/