This is bad.
How bad?
Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
OK, so maybe not that bad, but the last thing I need is this kind of time-sucking temptation.
I’ve messed around with online role-playing games since back in the dial-up BBS days (“In my day, we had 1200 baud, and we liked it! We loved it!”). And I’ve looked at a few of the MMORPG’s, but I’ve never been too excited about the standard medieval fantasy type games. I’ve been waiting for a really good classic Star Trek RPG or a superhero one. Freedom Force is a great superhero game, but the next step is to interact with live humans immersed in a virtual reality.
City of Heroes comes out of beta and goes live next Wednesday. And it looks awesome.
There is an excellent review of the game at WorthPlaying. However, the thing that got my attention was the series of posts Sherri has made. She’s talking about withdrawal symptoms because they’ve turned off the beta for 2 days prior to the launch!
Another friend of mine was in beta, and she loved it. I’d love to, but time is an issue for me these days…
If you chose to join the ranks of Heroes, I suggest the following:
1)Get the wife involved. The fashion design choices for characters alone is good for 6-8 hours
2) Find people you know when you get online (email me and we shall work out a plan) because TEAMWORK is a HUGE element of the game. You succeed with a good team and you die a lot with a lousy one. Dying isn’t as huge a problem in the game as it is elsewhere, but it’s still damned inconvenient.
3) Think carefully about character design or the other players will laugh at you
4) have at least 4 versions of a name you want — names are at a premium
5) Have characters on each server. Servers get laggy, go down, or get full, and you want to be able to switch when your fix is due
I got invited into the Beta this past Tuesday so I’ve not logged tons of time in the game, but enough to form an opinion. I think it’s pretty good overall, but when you look at the big picture it’s not all that different from many of the other MMORPGs out there in terms of run around and beat up on random things. The “mission” system does a good job of keeping you involved in doing something interesting and telling a story, better than most games of this type, but overall it’s still a variation on a theme.
I’ll probably wait until the price on it comes down before I pick it up as I don’t think it’s revolutionary enough to justify a $50 price on top of the monthly fee. Once it drops down to around $20 for the client I’ll be more inclined to jump in.
I on the other hand, would be willing to pay a larger price for the game (any on-line RPG game) were there no monthly charges….
I’m dying to try Everquest, but I can’t stomach the thought of $14 a month, especially if it becomes the time-suck that I believe it would be for me….
However, Solly old pal, if you do go and get involved in something that is really cool, please let this one-of-your-oldest-RPG-playing pals know, such that he might suck it up and try it out anyway!
Oooh! We could get the old Guardians of Justice or whatever the hell it was that we called our super team when we played Marvel RPG, eh? 😀
I followed your link from ASV and saw this post- you are dead on about this game. I picked up a preorder CD so that I could get in 3 days early and played for about 6 hours yesterday. I’ve got two characters- a magic scrapper and a science controller. Last night I was playing my controller (who has gravity control and empathy aka healing) and I was grouped with a blaster (that I know from gamerswithjobs.com- great site for adults who game) and we were absolutely kicking ass and taking names. I haven’t had that much fun in a MMORPG since the early days of DAoC.