I really blame this on Kiltorn and his post in the forums. That and of course I’ve just not felt really at home in any mmorpg as of late. World of Warcraft has lost it allure. Dark Age of Camelot has once again left that stale taste in my mouth. So it only seemed natural after reading his post that I should revisit City of Heroes. I forgot how fun it is. I forgot how quickly things move in the game. I haven’t forgot my past issues with the game.

Although it does appear that they will be adding the arch nemesis for your super hero into the game in the form of a stand alone sequel called City of Villains. The problem I have is that since this is not an expansion pack it means to take advantage of this feature you need to pay for both games.

For now I’ll just not worry about that kind of thing. I have to admit it is fun playing the game, especially since I’m such a comic book geek. I of course don’t expect it to last. I get in these kicks and they seem to only last a month. But I’ll concentrate on having fun.

Well I got to say City of Heroes is pretty fun to play. Of course I only played maybe 2 hours max today before I took my nap for work. I made level 3 already, but the chat in game says leveling is slow. But so far I’ve been having to much fun just playing the game.

Character creation is quite involved, if you spend the time on it. You can just about make any kind of super hero you can imagine. You can only tweak the costume. There no stats to adjust. But you do get to pick your primary and secondary powers. At level 6 you also get to choose from a power pool of additional powers. You gain powers every other level.

Now there are no items in this game like in your standard mmorpg. But three things do drop from mobs. Every mob you kill gives you xp (of course) and what they call influence points. You use these points to buy from the two item types from npc’s. The two item types are power enhancers and inspirationals. Power enhancers of course enhance your powers in a many different possible ways. Inspirationals are one shot items. They can do all kinds of things, buff, heal, damage add, etc.

You start in training zone which looked to me gave no exp for mobs you killed while not on a mission. But that’s only in this training zone. Missions are the games bread and butter in the same way I imagine WoW’s quests are (got to pimp WoW). You get missions from npc’s called contacts. Missions can vary from fedex type quests to patrolling an area to going into a instanced “dungeon” to kill all the mobs inside. You will find clues inside these missions that can add to the flavor of the whole super hero thing going on in the game. My three levels I’ve made are form doing missions only. You can run into mobs on the street either committing a crime or just standing around talking shit.

And the powers are kinda like Camelot’s styles/magic really. Each time you use one it costs endurance and has a short re-timer on it. You can que up two powers in advance and even set one power to auto attack.

That’s pretty much all I can think of for now. Any questions you guys got I’ll try to answer them. Uh and I may have been overly harsh in my news post. I don’t miss not having a secret identity or an arch villian at all. The game is fun as it is.

So I’m contemplating picking up City of Heroes. Let first say that I have tried 3 different games in this massively multiplayer online roleplaying game genre since I dinged 50 in Dark Age of Camelot. First I tried Horizons, then the Lineage 2 beta, and finally Final Fantasy XI. None of these games did it for me. I’ve tried to like them. It just seems either it’s more of the same as all the rest or it’s the funky control scheme that gets in my way.

I’m hoping that CoH can fill my desire to continue to play these kinds of game until World of Warcraft comes out. It should be the perfect mmorpg for me. I’m a huge comic book geek. When I was younger I had aspiration of becoming a comic book artist. But it’s some of the things that are missing from this game that keeps me from thinking this one will last, even if for a few months until WoW ships. I’ve discussed these issues with Gawain, since he is the only person I knew that had the beta. So any faulty info I blame on G.

Number one issue I have is the fact you are a super hero all the time. This is not the way it should be. Super heroes have secret identifies. That’s what makes these powerful beings human. Look at Superman. What would Superman be if he didn’t have his Clark Kent alter ego? Just another guy in tights. The act of maintaining a secret identity is one of those things that makes super heroes super heroic. The chance that you arch nemesis will find out your real identity and then put the people you care about in harms way is one of the best comic book plots.

Which brings me to issue two, the arch nemesis. Going back to my Superman example. What would Superman be without Lex Luthor? A man is judged by the quality of his enemies, a super hero doubly so. Not having your own personal bad guy with which you fight with now and then goes against every super hero comic book there is. You have no purpose otherwise other than killing mobs in a mmorpg that masquerades as a super hero themed game.

Now despite these two glaring flaws I most likely will be picking this game up at my local EB later today. It sounds like for the most part the game is big on fun. Which would be nice for a change.