I saw that they have some free play for this, whilst perusing the offerings from Steam, and figured what the hell.
Character creation is ok in general, and good for an MMO, at least within my experience of the genre thus far.
Obviously there’s the cosmetics, which I’ll spare you the details of, and then you select your powers. There is virtually no information on the power selection screen. You can pick a package of powers or customize. Since you only get two powers I figured what was the point and just went with “Darkness”, which seems more like a melanin condition, but whatever. It startled me to see that there are attributes to the character, yet they were totally untouchable by the player, again leaving me to wonder what the fucking point is.
Onward. I made my character, he looked ok, then entered the game proper. Everything looked like ass and for a bit I was concerned my vision or display was going. Looking in the options I see a “use half resolution” checkbox. So my options are fuzzy detail lacking hell or full throttle quality. Thankfully(?) full throttle quality wasn’t anything special and even my little laptop was up to the task. Still, why not give me some real options here, like a real game?
Forgot to mention, you’re asked if you’d like to use a control layout like a fantasy game, a something else game, or the one made for Champions. What kind of burnouts are they trying to get to play this thing?
Upon entering the game proper you’re dropped into a bullshit scenario, which is the norm but is always still retarded and ham brained. Some aliens have blocked off a chunk of city and are doing something something. Everything is weirdly static. Literally there’s a bunch of schmoe npcs just standing around while a hundred feet away monsters from the beyond idly ignore the fleshy bits and sort of halfheartedly attack you whenever you wander over.
Terminal boredom set in so I deleted the game. City of Heroes was actually better than this, in almost every way, even in the patch crazed days when I finally got fed up and left. No, wait, it was better in every single way aside from some of the character cosmetic options, leaving Champions to look like the unattractive, kind of stupid kid brother.
There are a few things that this experience led me to consider though.
Control idioms.
Why are these asshole controls the norm in MMOs? Is there some technical reason that I have to do weird shit to look around with my mouse? It’s not like there’s ever anytime where you have to click on something that you can’t look at, and walking around would be a lot easier.
Why do I have to click on the douchebag that’s weaving me a new scrotum from the bits of penis I have left before attacking it? I don’t know about you, but I think it’s important to stop that kind of thing.
What is with the shit all over the screen? Find a more elegant way people. Stacks of fucking menus, maps, pointers, shit over people’s heads, target boxes around things and whatnot all serve to take me out of the game.
If you’re going to have a “block” or “defend” style action, make that shit something that can be toggled or held down. This is a fucking MMO. Fine tuning the timing of shit is not your forte, so don’t make me try and guess when I need to block for exactly one second.
Artwork.
Why are MMOs ugly? You always hear it’s so as to run on as many machines as possible, but what the fuck does that have to do with it? You can set the detail for different machines just fine, just like a real game. I don’t expect it to be pushing the envelope, but it should at least look stylish.
Culture clash. Instead of having a number of different “origins” or “types” of hero, how about stem it all from a single event? Like the mutant gene in X-Men or the White Event in that weird spin-off reality or the mutagen from Static Shock.
Don’t mock me. Static Shock had some good times.
If you are going to have multiple origins for these guys, then make it count. Make the way things work different, instead of just “I fire a bunch of small, yet somewhat differently colored than my compatriot’s, projectiles”.
Anyway, in a nutshell, if you got bored with City of Heroes don’t come to Champions looking for a better time.
Edit: I decided to give it another shot, see what it was like with travel powers and beyond the intro area. Turns out that while you can muck about until level 15 in the intro area, you can’t actually leave the fucking thing. This is insane. I wasn’t expecting unlimited access, but wow man.
Now, the reason this really irks me are twofold.
1) You can gain levels in the intro zone but cannot actually level up, meaning upgrade yourself, see how new powers work, and so on.
2) Instead of a message saying “Sorry dude, this is the end of the line for free accounts” you just stand there like a jackass pressing the “Travel to <Canada or The Desert>” while nothing happens.
We’ll see if I feel like paying to experience this thing more fully. Not today though.
Edit 2: Fine. I’ll fucking buy it. Stupid videos tantalizing me with the larger world.