On June 26, 2005 I made my first Hero; Infinite Zen on the Infinity server and a couple weeks later I joined the Dragon Legion supergroup. The "DL" has been my main supergroup ever since, I am one of the leaders now and good in-game friends with several of the other members, but none of it has turned into real life relationships. One of the best features of CoH is that the game has never stopped being developed. Every few months the game's developer, Cryptic Studio, will release an expansion pack aka "Issue" which typically add a new set of powers to use in creating a character, a new zone (city neighborhood) to explore and do missions in, or some new enhancement to the gameplay. In October 2006 Cryptic releases "City of Villains" the standalone counterpart to CoH, CoV has the same gameplay and mission structure, but has all new Archetypes (the way the game sets up the type of powers you use). The games have overlapping PvP zones and mesh together by using overlapping backstory and some overlapping enemy groups. CoX or Co* as we now refer to it fulfilled many of the elements I had always wanted in a game.
I was never interested in any other MMORPG until Cryptic released Issue 7. The primary addition in Issue 7 was the level 40-50 (50 is the game cap) content for Villains, most of which takes place in "Grandville" an island (aka Zone) that serves as the headquarters to Lord Recluse (in the game mythos he is the Archenemy of Statesman CoH's greatest Hero) The zone is so overblown, so difficult to Navigate unless you chose Fly as your travel power, and the missions so repetitive and filled with extremely difficult bosses to solo play that I got fed up and left the game.
Soon after Issue 7 was released one of the friends I had made in-game asked if I wanted to go with them and try "World of Warcraft" with a free 14 Day Trial. We first started as members of the Alliance. The game play in WoW though sharing many chararcteristics as CoX also has some significant differences. First of all there are a lot more powers you earn and there are a lot more resources you have to manage. WoW isn't just about killing creatures to get XP (experience points that add up to unlock stronger abilities) it's also about choosing professions and participating in the games Economy. CoX doesn't have an economy of any kind (though that is about to change with Issue 9). In CoX there is only one real driving force, complete missions to earn experience to get stronger powers. In WoW you have many more choices, you can spend hours in the game doing nothing more than wokring on becoming a better fisherman or leatherworker. You can become rich by farming resources other people need for their tradeskills or by being a buyer/seller of goods through the auction houses. Also the actual game enviroment of WoW is a much more complete "world". The bodies of water have depth, you can swim underwater and even drown. You can climb mountains, fall to your death from perilous peaks, and with the exception of raid dungeons all quests are completed out in the one game world you share with every other player on the server. In CoX most missions are completed on instance maps that are created and specifically tailored to you and/or your team size and level. WoW is a much more immersive game. But also has some severe drawbacks for the gamer with only small pockets of time to play.
First off, it's not until level 40 you even have the option of not running everywhere you need to go on foot. The exception being for big trips where you have to pay your in-game money to use a flying mount which travels on a prefixed path to your destination, IF you have already travelled there by foot and unlocked it as a destination. In CoX at level 14 you have your choice of a variety of Super Travel Powers; Fly, Superspeed, Super Jump, and Teleport. Which makes getting around the game quick and easy. At higher levels in WoW it was common for it to take 15-20 minutes for me to get from one end of a continent to the other as often required by a quest. That means that in some cases I would travel 20 minutes to get to a town so I could drop off an item then travel 20 minutes back to where I started to continue on my Quest. I simply don't have 40 minutes to waste travelling I typically only play for a couple hours in a row. Next, the game requires you to be involved with the economy, it cost lots of money to be able to buy a Mount at level 40 so that you can travel 40% faster and unless you find someone to give you money, buy illegal Gold from an online site (with real money mind you) or spend hours farming for rare items that will fetch big money in the auction house you will never actually have enough money to buy a mount at level 40, which means you waste even more time still travelling by foot. Third, with the exception of Raids which can take 4-8 hours and require 5 to 40 other players to complete the core quests of the game are not team friendly. Since the economy is so important and most of your earnings come from the trade goods or money found on the critters you kill, having to split things 5 ways is typically not the most advantageous way to do things. In CoX teams can be up to 8 people and it's actually in your best interest to put together a team and mission together. CoX was built around making the team experience it's core.
I played WoW for three months eventually getting a Horde Undead Priest to level 60, which was then the games cap. But once the excitement of getting my first character to 60 was done I started to really notice the repetitive nature of the gameplay. Certainly all MMOs suffer from the fact that the fighting system is based on Dungeons and Dragons style "Turn based" fighting. But in CoX the advance graphics, particle and ragdoll physics, and typical 8 man team size makes the combat feel much more dynamic and almost as if it was a realtime action game. I also missed the much more mature mentality in CoX, WoW is filled with too people whose only purpose for playing is to try and prove they are "l33t" and there is a definite unfriendliness towards new players primarily brought out by the over-importance of the in-game economy. In the end I started missing CoX more than I was enjoying playing WoW and so I went back.
Stay tuned for Part Three
Posted by John at March 28, 2007 12:52 AM