GameDevMike

Last weekend I decided to reopen my primary DAOC account and try to get back into the game again. As fate would have it, the billing server was down. After several attempts over an hour, I gave up. I wanted to spend some time Sunday either playing something new or something I’d not played in a while. So I started looking for something else.

The new UO client (Kingdom Reborn) had recently been released, so I thought I’d give that a go. I was a UO player a decade ago and actually tried to get back into it again last year. Things are much, much different from what they used to be, but it just doesn’t hold any appeal for me. It just feels boring. It was exciting back when it was fairly new and there was little else with which to compare it. But with the hours I’ve logged in other MMOs since, it just doesn’t stack up. I actually paid to reopen my account, though, so I might force myself to play a bit more throughout the month to see if it gets any better for me.

Next up was Dungeon Runners. I had installed it a couple of weeks earlier but hadn’t gotten around to playing it. Once I logged in, created a character, and entered the world, my first reaction was, “WoW!” As in, the graphics are very WoWish. As I moved around and checked things out, I just couldn’t get into it. It has a click-based movement scheme, which I can’t say I like. Combat seemed dull. It’s a free game with an option to pay for benefits, but after 10 minutes I was ready to uninstall it.

Since Dungeon Runners is published by NCSoft, you can install the NCSoft launcher when you install the game. I had noticed when I ran it, before starting the game, that they advertise other NCSoft titles in a sidebar, with links to purchase them. The entry for City of Heroes had a link to a digital download purchase. I had wanted to buy the game at Direct2Drive some time ago, but they have it restricted to ‘purchase in North America only’ (most of the games I want to buy from D2D are burdened with that annoying restriction). So I followed the link to the NCSoft store and found that I could purchase it and download it from Korea with no problem (yet not at D2D — silly distribution deals). Plus, it’s a combo of City of Heroes and the City of Villains expansion. It wasn’t long before I found myself confronted with the character creation screen.

I had heard that creating characters in CoH was like a fun little game unto itself. It’s true. I like it so much, I’ve created several, both heroes and villains, over the past week and have really enjoyed designing their costumes. As for the gameplay, I’ve been actively looking for something to gripe about and can’t find anything. I generally don’t like grouping with strangers, so I like MMOs with a strong solo component. There are very few of them out there. You can solo in many MMOs, but the solo content often isn’t as strong as that for groups. And there are many instances where you are required to group. So far, I haven’t seen any of that in CoH. It’s very solo-friendly. Once I make friends, I do enjoy grouping, so I like to see good group content, too. CoH has that in abundance as well. From what I’ve seen in a week of playing, Cryptic has managed to strike a fine balance between solo and group content that very few MMOs have achieved.

As for the rest, the way the quest, or mission, system works is just great. Some missions take place in the shared environment, some send you off to an instanced zone. DAOC added instances in one of their expansions, but they are quite dull and feel rather out of place with the rest of the game world. In CoH, they are implemented such that they blend with the game world nicely. Plus, it actually feels like you are out trying to save the city from villainy (or trying to build a villainous rep, as the case may be). I don’t know what the game was like upon release or in the years prior to my signing up, but it feels extremely polished and very well put-together.

The only gripe I have about CoH thus far is that Cryptic need to find someone to proofread their textual content. Just as with DAOC, I have found numerous spelling, grammatical, and contextual mistakes in the mission dialogues and other text. The immersion factor of this game is off the scales, but the textual errors break it from time-to-time.

Anyway, I’m thoroughly addicted. It’s rare these days for a game to grab me by the neck and pull me in as completely as CoH does. I’m sure much of it has to do with the fact that it’s a new experience for me, not just in gameplay but also the subject matter. Fantasy MMOs tend to all blend together now. Whenever I play a new one, it’s not really new. CoH, just by its setting alone, makes for an entirely different experience. That the designers have done a lot of things right is just a plus. I do anticipate, though, that once I’ve seen enough of the content and the newness has worn off, it will lose some of its appeal. I’ve already played through several different paths in the lower levels. Since they are fairly quick to go through I’ve created several alts to try things out. It’s only a matter of time until the magic wears off. But for now, CoH is my new addiction.

As it turns out, my DAOC account was reopened automatically and I was credited for a free month because of the problems with the billing server, which was down for a few days. I have yet to log in.

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