Feeling Heroic!

That's right, beeches! Due to my diligence and stoic composure under pressure... because of my constant patrolling of this city's rooftops... thanks to me having lots of stuff on my mind... I was the FIRST! The first I say!!! To notice that NCsoft (makers of Guild Wars) has made their game 'City of Heroes' free frEE FREE!!! Fear me...fear my skull!!! (except I'm a hero, so only fear me a little...)

Oh...and cuz I screwed it up before...I'm not magic. As stated in the 'origin' line there, my powers are all natural, just tuned and focused natural abilities I've harnessed. So when I fire a 'Dark Blast' at a target, hell we all have that! When I drain an opponent's life essence with 'Death Shroud', or when I absorb life essence with 'Gloom', or when I wrap my fists with darkness for a KaPOW using 'Smite'...it's all natural, baby! YEAH! Note: Other origins include things like technological, magic, science, mutation...ETC. I really like the way this game has done super powers so far!!!

You never included a link to this. I know, search it out if you really want it...

Or click here and start the process today!

City of Heroes

It does play on my netbook, by the way... it's just recommended that I update the drivers. I'll do that part later; right now, I am installing it on the desktop.

I am giving this thread a big thumbs up, and the original poster a hefty +. Why? Because if it wasn't for him, I would not have known CoH was now free to play and available for free download.

You see, I have owned this game since it first came out all those years ago. I purchased it from our local Wal*Martfor whatever the price of a new game was back then, took it home, proceeded to install it... and discovered that the only way to enjoy this game was by paying a monthly fee.

I did not know that when I purchased it. Also, the bastich at Wal*Mart who puts their sticky little labels and tags and scan bars on the packages, for some reason, put that sticker over the game requirements. I just paid X amount of dollars on the game, I already paid X amount of dollars on internet, I'll be damned if I'm going to continue paying X amount of dollars every month for a game to play online that I've already paid fo!.

So, the game has sat, collecting dust. But now? Now I can play!


I wonder, though, what would happen if I installed the game again and played it over the disk version? Will I have some of the unlockables? I will have to check this out this coming weekend, oh yes.

As I mentioned earlier, the game installed just fine on my netbook. The resolution wasn't quite right, but the game went and put the black vertical bars along the left and right edges so that it fits in a square window versus a wide-screen. I've already made a character, Bludshade, but will be re-doing him. Stage 2 did install, but I cannot say if it was playable or not on the netbook (but I will assume yes) because I had to head out to work.

I've also started to download / install the game on the desktop, but funny thing... I got, if I remember correctly, a GL error. it was definitely a G something error box. Anywho, apparently I have to update the drivers for the desktop. No biggie, just an other thing to do this weekend.

Additionally, I also told the oldest boy about this, and he wants to install it on the laptop, but doesn't know if it'll work: he's running linux 11.04 on it. Is there any add-on I have to download to make the game work, or would linux take care of that, or should the game be fine? So many questions!

Oh well, that's that.

Getting it running on Linux, you will need to get to the ROOT of the problem! HA!!! Linux humor! If you didn't get it, you are not L33T.

Anyway...just in case anybody on here who might also decide to play this game might ALSO decide to hook up at some point and sleigh da dragon, I have chosen the 'Guardian' server as my heroic home for my main character. I have no idea if the different servers will have any difference in gameplay, but I do know people not on the same server will never be able to yell battle cries together. So, any hopeful sidekicks need to create a character on Guardian and drop an application for the position of boy (or girl) wonder. Tights optional.

Dammit. Only after the fact do you see mistakes, like in the case of her "battle cry". I'm going to have to change that.

Anywho, this is what I am running with for the moment. Almost level three, but I had to stop so I could take care of some house things... least the wifey kill me later.

And my villain character; his weapons are "Villain Claw 2" for both hands; this guy can turn invisible!

Nice characters! BUT...my guy still looks more badass... just saying

Happened again... tried to log on, and when the load screen was about 3/4 of the way done, I got kicked back to the main menu. This time there was a slight twist, in that after I hard tried to log on, it told me I already was.

All of this occurred after my villain character tried to get to Port... Port... something. Can't recall at the moment.

So anyway, I then tried to use the female character, and same thing... load and then boot to main.

It was probably a good thing that it had happened, as I got my villain from 3rd level up to 8th. I was soooo close to hitting ninth. [i]That's[/]i] how much I was playing today.

Gotta say, though the options in the character editor allow for almost any combo to pretty much match up any character we might like from "original sources," sometimes it falls just a bit too short...

Even Soothsayer Junior MK II is on City of Heroes: Freedom. What kind of person do you have to be to not be on this?

I'm just posting this because of what was shown earlier. CoH is limited, yes, but you just need to find ways around things. I am certain that if you were a bit more awake, you could have come up with this as well.

I made some mistakes as well... suit should have been more purplish, and the boots grey. Oh well.

I have deleted my girl fire character... and made DOOM! Well, kinda; Doom, von Doom, and Victor von Doom were all taken. So I made Victor.

Pretty good character so far. Technology based, primary powers are energy blasts, secondary are magical stuff. Mwa-hahahaha.

Oh, and he is a good guy. For now. Next time I am on, we'll have to call each other or something to get together. I'd do so now, but Soothsayer Junior Mk II is dying for the desktop. Guess I should see CoH run on the netbook, huh?

Right then. For your viewing enjoyment, Vincent von Doom!

I miss City of Heroes.

Because of my earlier post today regarding the obvious lack of characters in games with which they have decades upon decades of material and hundreds, if not thousands, or characters to chose from, I became nostalgic.  Wanting more, wanting to be able to make my own super powered or costumed being, to explore an open world environment, to do things when and where and how I saw fit.

I thought Marvel Heroes would have been the way to go, but that only allows you to use a pre-existing character, and even though they have the Punisher, they don't have the variety and uniqueness I was looking for.  I then thought of DC Universe; this was a free game, and allowed you to make your own character...  I'll check later to see if it is still available in the Playstation Store.  **Just checked.  It is, along with a free starter pack (playstation plus only).  You can verify that by clicking here**  Might give that a try.  I know I tried it before, back when I had Centurylink providing my crappy internet service, so maybe I'll have better luck with Packerland and the 10Mbps.

Gawd, that would be nice.  You know, I actually liked playing on the Playstation Home mmo.  Sure, it got boring, but it was fun.  Or at least, it provided a nice distraction.  Okay, yes, I'm going to download and install DC Universe onto my PS3.  I hope that alleviates my super hero fix.

But then, just to back track a little bit, I was trying to find something similar to City of Heroes, and my search led me to Champions Online.  This was developed (whole or in part, I do not know) by the people that brought us CoH, so it might be worth checking out.  Hmm... according to the wiki (here), you can create your own character movements, and animation, but then it goes on to say that "freeform creation is limited to Gold members".  I don't know if that means we can still make our own characters but can't alter the animations, or if it means we're limited or what.  Will have to download and check that out as well.

So there you go.  A fix for my cravings.

Anyone on here playing an MMO along these lines?  Or any MMO?  I know 'crunch was playing... umm...  not Titan, but some other giant mecha game.  Still playing that?  I know that that was heavily restricted though, as far as what the free users could do.

After some (much?) review, it looks as if I'll be leaning towards DC Universe.  Maybe.

I'll still give Champions a try, mainly because having it installed on my laptop gives me the luxury of taking my game anywhere... then again, I can always download DC Universe onto it as well.  Crap, didn't think about that.

*ponders*

Anyway, the reason I am leaning towards DC is because of the customization.  All the reviews I've read say that Champions has the better customs, allowing you to go above and beyond.  The kicker is that yes, only the gold / paying members get that amount.  Being a cheap person, I wouldn't.  Besides which, most of the reviews have also said that while Champions has the better customs, DC has the better play-ability, story, and everything in between.

Guess it really just boils down to how detailed I want my character versus actually enjoying myself.  I'll still give both a try, but it does seem as if DC will be the one.

{EDIT}  I should stop reading.  Right now.

Looked up some more reviews, but this time I was looking into the Champions gold (paying) versus silver (free).  Turns out, even though there are some big differences, they aren't major.

1.  Gold gives you access to all power traits, allowing you to mix powers and abilities from any archetype (15?  17? in total), whereas with silver, you pick an archetype (9).

2.  Costume choices.  Gold gives you everything, silver you are limited to a few thousand choices.  Also, gold allows you to have four costume choices for your character, with silver you only get one.

3.  Gold allows you to make and save four characters.  Silver, limited to two.

4.  Gold gives you free points each month to spend on stuff.  With silver, you have to earn the points.

5.  With gold, your inventory bag is bigger... I forget how much you can hold, but it was a single digit amount.  In silver, you get one.  Joining an alliance expands that.

6.  Modes of transportation.  I think the reviews said there were seven or nine forms of movement / transportation; in free mode, you get only five.  Flight and teleportation are in those five.

7.  Gold gets full access to the forums.  Silver gets to read the posts, you just can't post.  In addition, gold gets access to customer service, silver you're stuck having to figure stuff out on your own.

All in all, it doesn't look too bad.  Yeah, you're missing out on stuff, but it doesn't look as if it's anything overly major.  Of course, I'm just saying this by result of review, and without having experienced anything.  You are more than welcome to buy stuff in game if you really wanted to.  One thing of note that I found was that, should you be a gold member and then stop paying, you lose access to your gold level stuff; you can transfer your character down to the silver level, but that's it... you cannot bring that character back up to gold.

Things might have changed, as these were older reviews (couple years plus).  Worth giving it a try anyway.

Champions Online system requirements are:

Quote :

Minimum System Requirements
OS:Windows XP SP2/ Windows Vista/Windows 7
CPU:2.5GHz Single Core or 1.8GHz Dual Core
Memory:1GB RAM
Video:NVIDIA GeForce 7600
Sound:DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard
DirectX:Version 9.0c or Higher
HDD:5GB Free Disk Space
Network:Broadband Required
Disc:6X DVD-ROM

Recommended System Configuration
OS:Windows XP SP2/ Windows Vista/Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)
CPU:Intel E8400 Core2Duo or Better
Memory:2GB RAM or Better
Video:NVIDIA GeForce 8800 or Better
Sound:DirectX Compatible Soundcard
DirectX:Version 9.0c or Higher
HDD:5GB Free Disk Space
Network:Broadband Required
Disc:6X DVD-ROM or Better

DC Universe Online Review

Platform: Playstation 3
Connectivity:  Broadband at 10mbps

Tuesday I downloaded DC Universe Online from the Playstation Store, starting at around 6p or so; don't quite remember the exact time.  I should have expected this, but what you are downloading from the store is the installer program, not the game itself.  As such, the installer program downloaded and installed relatively quickly.  Running the installer took a few hours.  I let it run overnight, so I can't tell how how long it takes; of course, your internet connection will make this time vary anyway.

Wednesday morning, before heading to work, I checked on the game status: everything downloaded, but on the screen were the words "game failed" or something like that.  I mention this so that, should you install this game and encounter this situation, note that you will simply have to exit / quit the game, and then come back on.  Simple as that.

Wednesday afternoon, at around 5:15p, I fired up DC Online.  Everything ran smoothly, with no hiccups or glitches.  This then is my review of the character builder, the tutorial, and my initial impression of the game.

Character Builder

I don't know.  I wasn't too impressed with this.  There are three different body sizes based on the body type you want, of which there were... three?  four?  All the body sizes matched each other exactly throughout the body types, with the only notable difference being height.  There could have been other differences, but remember that I am running this on a standard television, so I may not have been able to make out the details.  And even though in the game's introduction trailer you can see a giant person, you cannot play one.

The next big thing in the creation is creating your power base, or element or tree or whatever.  The standard fair is there: magic, celestial, ice, fire, earth, gadget, munitions, and so on.  This determines your role in group settings; some trees are purchase only.  Next you pick your weapon of choice: one hand, two hand, staff, duel pistols, rifle, energy, and so on.  You can also pick your movement style: flight, aerobatic, speed, and skim (skim is purchase only).  You can also pick your personality; this determines how you converse with the NPCs.

Almost forgot: you have to pick right away if you are a hero or villain, and then you pick who your mentor is.  Unlike City of Heroes, where you were awarded morality points to determine your alignment, you need to pick right away, with no option to change.  Your mentor assists with the tutorial and with the missions.

Once you have the basics of your character, you move onto making the costume and body features.  I wasn't too impressed with the selections or the edit options.  This seems like the most basic version of Hero Machine, but without the extras.  Seemingly your costume choices really don't do anything, as you are awarded or find costume pieces during missions, but more on that later.  Once you have the costume that you want (or are allowed to make), you get to pick your color palette.  You can only pick three colors... and instead of having a color wheel with a contrast bar as most games or paint programs do, you have three bars that take quite a bit of time to get used to.  The three colors are your main color, secondary and third (detail).  You can edit particular garments in the order of which they were selected, but you are stuck with those three color choices.

That's sad, really.  Soul Caliber allows you to adjust color on everything it seems, and that works just fine for online PVP, but nope, three colors only.  That for me was a big drawback.

**Instead of making your own character, you can pick an archetype, and the system will then make your character, costume and all.  What fun is that?

The final thing you do is enter a name.  Good luck with that!  Being an older game, it seems that all the names are already taken... I had to resort to Google Translate to find something, and even then that took a while.

All told, I crafted a serious heroic female character that can climb walls and uses duel pistols.  Think of a combination of Spider Man and Ghost (from Dark Horse Comics).  Or Lora Croft.

I did find out that you cannot shoot pistols while climbing something, or while on the side or something, or upside down.  That sucks, as I wanted a character that could use climbable areas as shields / obstructions / cover.  Oh well.

Once you complete the tutorial, you do have the option to make changes to your character should you want to.

Overall, while I enjoyed making my character, once you complete the process, you'll see just how limiting it actually is.  Three colors, dear gawd.  OH!  When you are done with your character, even though there is nothing on the screen to indicate so, you press the start button to complete everything.  You do this when you have finished coloring your costume.  It could be that the screen is adjusted for a widescreen TV, which may be why I didn't see anything, but I cannot say.


Tutorial

I won't go into the story or the how / why, but all in all the tutorial was good.  The graphics are a lot better and smoother than what I had thought they'd have been.  Controls are simple.  Left stick moves, right stick aim / looks.  L1 brings up your power selection, R1 blocks.  X jumps, Square attacks (hold square for powered attack based on abilities). Square also doubles as melee attack.  Triangle is basic attack.  Circle is your interaction button.  Start brings up your journal and other menus (shoulder buttons to navigate).  Hold the start button and you get an inventory wheel.

It was in the tutorial that I found you cannot shoot while on a wall.  Kind of sad.  Also, climbing around obstacles and sticking to the ceiling, and relatively trying to be as stealthy as possible (as my character would have), does not mean you will get by unseen.  Oh no, the enemies will still see you, so you might as well just barrel on through.

At one part of the tutorial, I thought I had completed the level, but I couldn't advance.  Looking around and searching revealed that there was an enemy buried under some cars that I had missed.  I couldn't get to him, and he couldn't get to me.  I targeted him anyway and blindly attacked, which then took care of the level completion.

As I had chosen Batman as my mentor, I had Oracle guide me through the tutorial via headset, and it was Batman that gave me my first in game mission.

I do have one nagging question regarding the tutorial though.  If my weapons are constructed, then why weren't they taken away when I was imprisoned?  The premise of the tutorial is you escape from a cryo chamber, one that is designed to leech your abilities.  *shrugs*


Game play

Please note that my only other experience with an MMO was when we had Centurylink providing our service, a service that seemed to die whenever anything was being done online.

The game play was smooth, with quick load times.  Motions were fluid.  There was no lag or hesitation that I could see or notice, but at the same time, it didn't look as if there were too many people on the server.  I'd assume that there might be some apparent hesitation when participating in a massive group activity, but then again, I'm also going off of my Centurylink fears.

The only bad thing with the normal game play (is, roaming the game world) is that I cannot climb any of the buildings.  I don't know why not: I can see people flying by, I can see speedsters running by.  I just can't climb.  Kind of pissed me off, but at least it gave me a chance to roam the streets and find spawn points where I could camp and shoot at the generic NPC bad guys.

One big thing of note:  do not... DO NOT... jump off the bridge or the wall along the river.  I walked around the entire damned area trying to find some way to get back up, with no success.  I did manage to get back up though, and should you find yourself in this predicament, try this: walk to the harbor / docks.  You'll note that the big boats are almost butting right against the embankment wall.  Walk until you are between a boat and one of the wall supports; walk up the angled support , jump, and kind of curve your jump towards between the boat and the support, and keep jumping.  With luck, you'll find yourself up on the sidewalk.

...

As most of my 3.5 - 4 hour experience with this game was divided between creation and walking along the river, I couldn't really tell you much about the missions.  I did notice that I didn't see a single villain player (plenty of spawned NPC baddies though); a different server perhaps?  

With what I have experienced, I may make a different character.  I'll play around with this one for a while though, just to really get a feel for things.  My biggest complaint, one that I have made before regarding different things, is my inability to read anything.  I will have to try adjusting the game settings to see if that helps at all, but I cannot read the chat window at all, and reading the stuff within the menus is quite difficult.  I could be a TV thing, or it could be that I have the brightness too high or something.  I don't know.

So then, for creation, I'd give it a 4/10.  City of Heroes was better, from what I can remember.  Soul Caliber, I think, spoiled me as far as character customization goes.

Tutorial, a solid 10/10.  Plenty of time to figure out the controls, plenty of time to just play around and see how things work, all without the baddies being difficult.

Game play is tricky as I didn't play that much.  From what I have seen so far, there are some shortcomings, but nothing that would drastically ruin your experience.  I give this an 8/10; just keep in mind I haven't actually played any missions yet.

Hopefully, I'll try Champions Online tonight; downloaded and installed that on Tuesday evening as well.



{EDIT}

Here, the DC Universe Online Wiki might help. Imagine that.

DC Wiki

Doesn't look like I'll be trying Champions tonight.  I had forgotten that this is "bill night", that time of week where I perform feats of mathematics and accounting.  That should only take about a half hour, if that; I performed the bank run during my lunch break, so it's only a matter of writing out a couple checks and mailing them off.

How can this possibly interfere with gaming?  It can't, not really.  But the wife is also asked if I could make a casserole tonight.  That shouldn't take too long either; simple matter of boiling noodles while I prep everything else.  I figure about another half hour.

And yes, that only brings us to about an hour of gaming time gone. I'll have to check the wife's schedule to see if she gets home at 8p tonight or 9p, and let that be the deciding factor. If anything, I can go through the character designer, get that finished so the next time I can get on, I can just play away.

In the meantime, here's the Champions Online wiki.

Alrighty, got some Champions playing time in this past weekend, and I have to say that yes, the character builder is quite extensive and was very pleasant to work with, very user friendly. I spent at least an hour or so working on my character; even with the limited selection a free user has access to, there is plenty of options to keep anyone happy.

I am having some difficulty with the controls, but I think that's mainly due to the fact that I haven't played such a game on the computer before. Wait, no, I take that back... I've played Prey and other FPS style games on the PC. Anyway, the initial control scheme is odd for me. Left mouse button controls aim, but not the direction your character moves? Right mouse button controls movement, but not targeting? You have to press the F key in order to talk to an NPC... but even if you click that character with the mouse, the words "Press F key" come on the screen; obviously someone knew you should click on the characters, but decided against it. Likewise, clicking on your target does not activate your weapon, you have to press that ability's associated number key or the attack button.

Jump is the space bar. Figured that one out on my own... yay!

Needless to say, the keyboard layout was different than what I'm used to, and the next time I try this game, I'll be going within the control settings and changing a bunch of things. If I continue to play this game, who knows, it might be prudent of me to by a PC gaming controller. Anyone use one of those?

What you are experiencing is the default control scheme for MMOs. Tera, Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Mabinogi, TROVE, Archeage, Trion, Elder Scrolls Online, ETC... pretty much all use the same basic setup with a couple changes. At least ESO is decent enough to default the action key (your F in champions) to E. Point is, I would recommend you give it a few days and get used to it. If you ever decide to go nuts trying free-to-play MMOs from the ever expanding list of them, you're going to get real sick of it real fast if you have to change the keyboard over and over. No, I'm not saying you're ever going to try 20 different versions of the same game to find one you like, but people have in the past.

As for controllers... I do occasionally use controllers, especially since picking up a Steam controller, on which the level of customization would be amazing for an MMO. That said, your skills set to the number keys, how would you configure that to a controller? Or chatting with other players? Ahhhh, just use the controller for movement, and use the keyboard to type and launch skills? Second thought, using the keyboard for skills while trying to maneuver in a fight might be the most awkward thing ever. Do what you need to do, but if you look at the list of F2P MMOs on Steam and see even 1 more you might want to try at some point, I recommend just learning the controls.

Took me forever playing Tera to get used to hitting F to make things happen. FOREVER. I still hit E sometime. But I had gone through Elder Scrolls Online and remapped my keys closer to Oblivion or Skyrim, spent quite a bit of time since everything I changed wrote over something else so I had to change that something else. After about 2 days, I had to switch back to default, cuz they knew what they were doing when they designed the control scheme. I quote Albert Einstein: "If you don't know what you're doing...BOOM!"