MMORPG: The Addiction

[rowyn]

I got home last night, safe & sound, and went to work today. My replacements did rather well in my absence, for a change. So much for job security. ;)

After work, Lut and I scooted over to Best Buy and picked up a copy each of City of Heroes, a new superhero-themed MMORPG released yesterday. Lut had pre-ordered it (ironically, we did not get his copy from the store he pre-oredered it from -- even forfeiting his re-order deposit, it was still cheaper to get it at Best Buy) in order to get into the end of the beta test and see what it was like. Despite some annoyances with management decisions at the end of the beta, Lut decided he liked it enough to buy it.

Surprisingly, so did I.

City of Heroes has a few advantages over the other MMORPGs I've seen lately. For one, it appeared well-suited to pairs of players, as opposed to EQ's focus on teams, or D2's indifference to grouping. I could make a healer-type, pair up with a character of Lut's, and run around destroying things without needing to find a group to be effective. This is especially important to me because I don't want to spend forty+ hours a week playing the game, the way I did with EQ. I don't even want to spend whole evenings doing it. And when you have to take the time to find a group, that means gaming sucks up your whole evening. Who wants to spend 45 minutes getting a group together if you've only got an hour to play?

That's the substantial advantage. The other advantage is entirely superficial:

The character design.

They've got an absurdly detailed character/costume design engine, to let you tailor a sea of different facets for your character: size, build, colors, belts, shoulderpads, gloves, boots, masks, faces, etc. You get the idea. Even so, it's not as flexible as I might like -- certainly not as flexible as, say, drawing your own from scratch. But it's soooo cute. I could spend hours just playing with the costume design. My mother said, when she doesn't have enough time to play, she likes to fire up the design engine and punch "random", just to giggle at what pops up. I probably spent more time designing my character's look than I did actually playing her. (She's this overbuilt midget in purple and gold. She looks very statuesque and impressive until you realize she's about 4'6".)

Anyway, I still spent too much time on the game. I'd better get cracking for a bit on Prophecy. I am going to be waaaaaay behind on quota for April, because of all the time off I took for visiting level_head and strangess. I have decided I won't beat myself up for that -- but I've got no excuse for not working on it now, when I'm home.

Comments

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Holy crap! Come over to Virtue server! That's where I and some comrades hang out. I did a little of the beta, and a bunch of people on the boards voted for Virtue to be the unofficial role-play server, so you have more people there hamming it up and fewer d3wds. I play, among other things, a series of prototype police and emergency robots. :)

[ltwarhound.livejournal.com]

Of the 10 servers up so far, only Virtue and Justice have hit heavy loads (out of light/medium/heavy).

We tend to be leery of overpopulated servers.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. I can certainly understand that. I haven't hit any troubles because of it, though. Few instances of lag, and plenty of villains to go around. It also seems to have a good number of pretty cool people... I dunno what your server is like, though.

I dunno what my server is like, either :)

[rowyn]

Lut suggested I start on a different server from the one he's been on, in any case, so that it'll be easier to keep some characters of my level around.

The first character I made up ("Angel of Grace") was on Guardian, since that's where my mother is. All I did with her was run her through the tutorial. I went ahead and made up a character on Virtue last night, too ("Spirit Seducer") but didn't even take her through the tutorial.

Honestly, at the rate I'm going, I don't think it'll matter what server I'm on, 'cause I'm gonna spend more time designing costumes than playing. ("Oo, look! I can have ram horns! And a spaded tail! Ooo, ooo, thigh-high boots! With flames on them! Squuuuuueeeee!") I'm sooooo shallow. :)

[rowyn]

A series of prototype police and emergency robots? How many characters do you have there? :)

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Well, during the beta I had three, with a fourth in design. Like you, I just couldn't get enough of coming up with character designs. :D "Oh, I can totally make this one look like a walking police squad car... oh, and I can make this one look like a tank. This one'll look like an ambulance..." I kept coming up with acronyms for names, all of which could be pronounced like regular names. (Amy is my blaster, Patty is my tanker, Tracy is my controller, and Suzanne is my defender.) A linked background sort of wrote itself, and the rest is history.
Now that the character wipe is past, I only have Amy, but since I like to experiment with the powers, I'll probably make the other sisters soon. For kicks, I may also make other themed characters... I could make Joseph Steeple and give him occult powers. :D