Connectivity and Server Stability: It's pretty clear the Cryptic server hardware and infrastructure isn't very good. It's cracking under the weight of the trial...and as others have indicated, they've thus far been having emergency unscheduled downtime pretty much every week. There was one period today - yes, during the trial weekend.
I'm writing this post now because I got disconnected, and can't get back in. The servers appear to be up. It's just, y'know, me. This is a very poor showing by Cryptic/Atari. Remember, server hosting for City of Heroes was always handled by NCsoft. Never Cryptic. These servers are Cryptic-operated, though...and it ain't good.
Graphics Card Compatability: This is very poor. My card's a GeForce 9500M - yeah, I'm playing on a laptop. And the game works fine at high graphics settings. It looks great, actually. The metallic textures and reflections are a thing of beauty, and the comic-book black outlines actually work quite nicely. Plus it's got antialias settongs...
BUT. I also know that I'm a fortunate minority here. Folks with older cards are probably gonna have problems. Ops, Ankh, you know this. And there's no reason why a modern MMO should have that kind of graphics compatability issues. No reason at all. Again, sloppy work.
Costume Creator: It's a very powerful tool that can do amazing things. Far better than CoH. EXCEPT...the INTERFACE for the Champions costume creator SUCKS. It's not the creator engine that's the problem, it's the INTERFACE. God, the menus. The dropdowns don't remember where they were. You can't scroll between pieces easily. It's kinda painful.
Gameplay: Now, this is the thing.
I like how Champions plays. But, fundamentally, this is an action game. More action than MMO, really. It's like...the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, that's really how it feels like to me. I enjoy that sorta thing, and I actually LIKE how the block mechanic and energy building systems work. But I also recognize that not everyone will.
You do need to be a lot swifter on the controls than in CoH. It's not quite twitch-based, but at the same time, positioning and movement matter a lot more than in CoH, and you gotta pay a lot more attention to what you're doing. Though that depends on what your powers are, of course. My Power Armor guy needs a lot of planning. My Telekinetic Blade girl is just a mobile button-mash blender. But still, all the same...
Is it a good game? That really depends on your tastes. It's really pretty damn far from City of Heroes. And while the power system gives you a lot of flexibility for doing different concepts, it's also damn easy to nerf yourself if you're not careful. That's one thing I don't like. On the one hand, the open power system should encourage you to do whatever the hell you can do.
On the other, if you don't plan your choices carefully, you're going to die. A lot.
Conclusion: Well, I've already bought the game. But I don't have graphics problems, and I actually like the gameplay. So it's a good game for me, but not necessarily for you.
There's also the fact I got it cheap, for about USD $20. That was a UK offer, though. I understand the street retail price is still more like US$40-50 elsewhere. I wouldn't buy it for that much.
I'm also not sure I'll re-subscribe after the trial month. We'll see.
-- Acyl
I'm writing this post now because I got disconnected, and can't get back in. The servers appear to be up. It's just, y'know, me. This is a very poor showing by Cryptic/Atari. Remember, server hosting for City of Heroes was always handled by NCsoft. Never Cryptic. These servers are Cryptic-operated, though...and it ain't good.
Graphics Card Compatability: This is very poor. My card's a GeForce 9500M - yeah, I'm playing on a laptop. And the game works fine at high graphics settings. It looks great, actually. The metallic textures and reflections are a thing of beauty, and the comic-book black outlines actually work quite nicely. Plus it's got antialias settongs...
BUT. I also know that I'm a fortunate minority here. Folks with older cards are probably gonna have problems. Ops, Ankh, you know this. And there's no reason why a modern MMO should have that kind of graphics compatability issues. No reason at all. Again, sloppy work.
Costume Creator: It's a very powerful tool that can do amazing things. Far better than CoH. EXCEPT...the INTERFACE for the Champions costume creator SUCKS. It's not the creator engine that's the problem, it's the INTERFACE. God, the menus. The dropdowns don't remember where they were. You can't scroll between pieces easily. It's kinda painful.
Gameplay: Now, this is the thing.
I like how Champions plays. But, fundamentally, this is an action game. More action than MMO, really. It's like...the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, that's really how it feels like to me. I enjoy that sorta thing, and I actually LIKE how the block mechanic and energy building systems work. But I also recognize that not everyone will.
You do need to be a lot swifter on the controls than in CoH. It's not quite twitch-based, but at the same time, positioning and movement matter a lot more than in CoH, and you gotta pay a lot more attention to what you're doing. Though that depends on what your powers are, of course. My Power Armor guy needs a lot of planning. My Telekinetic Blade girl is just a mobile button-mash blender. But still, all the same...
Is it a good game? That really depends on your tastes. It's really pretty damn far from City of Heroes. And while the power system gives you a lot of flexibility for doing different concepts, it's also damn easy to nerf yourself if you're not careful. That's one thing I don't like. On the one hand, the open power system should encourage you to do whatever the hell you can do.
On the other, if you don't plan your choices carefully, you're going to die. A lot.
Conclusion: Well, I've already bought the game. But I don't have graphics problems, and I actually like the gameplay. So it's a good game for me, but not necessarily for you.
There's also the fact I got it cheap, for about USD $20. That was a UK offer, though. I understand the street retail price is still more like US$40-50 elsewhere. I wouldn't buy it for that much.
I'm also not sure I'll re-subscribe after the trial month. We'll see.
-- Acyl