Gosok is up to his tricks again, trying to pull me back into the happy mire that online roleplaying is. The latest one is DC Universe Online, which is all right - the graphics are nice, the gameplay is pretty smooth, and the controls are pretty decent, except that its a little hard to choose your facing since you can't move backwards in the game, they just turn your character around if you move back.
Also I had a ton of trouble with their rudimentary chat interface, until they did an update late February. Can you believe that it was their "Valentines Day" events patch? It came like 2 weeks after Valentine's Day. It's what I'd expect from SOE I guess. :P
I'm playing a bit on the Last Laugh Server and I'm signed up for about the next 3 months since there was a nice promo rate.
Upsen.
Showing posts with label mmo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mmo. Show all posts
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Monday, August 9, 2010
City of Heroes - Back to Tanking
After teaming up with a bunch of god-awful tanks, all of whom knew nothing about aggro, I decided to start playing a few new tanks of my own, setting aside my other characters for now. (yet again, I didn't make it past 25 on the CoV side :P )
I tried a few different combos and here's the results of that:
An Ice/Fire. This one I haven't really gotten anywhere yet, and is currently sitting at a lowbie L7. I imagine it'll be a nice AOE type like my WP/Fire, except that it gets all kinds of ways to slow down enemies down to my level of regen, instead of the WP way of boosting regen to match the # enemies. This pairing should have no problem with aggro the way I did with WP, where I had to manage it fairly intensively.
An Invul/SS. I started it up cause it's a classic combo for a CoH tank. The tank is actually named Classic Tank. It does tank pretty easily except for a stint in the teens against psionic Aberrant Lost. Its currently up in the low 30s. I dont really expect to see any trouble with it until I get to the 40s and psionics start showing up more commonly. This tank is great for the mid level Task Forces like Manticore and Citadel.
A Dark/Energy. Darks are supposed to be some of the top all-around tanks once they get some IOs and defense. Being a resist set, if you stack that with a good defense, it should be a really good tank. This tank does definitely need a little more management than the invul though. This tank basically survives by using it's health leech power, Dark Regeneration, between taking damage, and if you're not on the ball with the timing, you will bite the dust. The knockback was also sort of irritating, and a bit dangerous if you get KB'ed when you need to hit your leech power, so I fixed it up with a Steadfast Defense IO to prevent it.
I decided to take the energy secondary attack set so I could take advantage of the stuns stacking with Dark's Oppressive Gloom. I've just gotten this tank up to the level where I can take OG (L26) and it works beautifully, with Lieutenants and Bosses getting stunned the way the Minions were before OG. The health loss is is well covered by the leech healing, which is really nice. The mobs wander a bit out of AOE range sometimes, but there's always more mobs crowding in, since I play at -1Lvl x5 heroes solo.
Previously I'd played dark up to 15 as a dark/dark, but I didn't like how it didn't have a quick charging AOE attack. I've also played as dark/fire up to the mid 30s too, but I didn't like that fire didn't have anything to help mitigate damage, which occurs with regularity on a resist set like dark. At the time IOs weren't available though, so today it could have been a different story.
The ability to customize the effects also helped a lot too, since I don't especially like the dark effects and the stealth cloak turning you into a shapeless blob. I set up this tank with a grey-white set of effects that look like hot steam pouring out of the tank, and I named it "Steam Powered Tank".
Upsen.
I tried a few different combos and here's the results of that:
An Ice/Fire. This one I haven't really gotten anywhere yet, and is currently sitting at a lowbie L7. I imagine it'll be a nice AOE type like my WP/Fire, except that it gets all kinds of ways to slow down enemies down to my level of regen, instead of the WP way of boosting regen to match the # enemies. This pairing should have no problem with aggro the way I did with WP, where I had to manage it fairly intensively.
An Invul/SS. I started it up cause it's a classic combo for a CoH tank. The tank is actually named Classic Tank. It does tank pretty easily except for a stint in the teens against psionic Aberrant Lost. Its currently up in the low 30s. I dont really expect to see any trouble with it until I get to the 40s and psionics start showing up more commonly. This tank is great for the mid level Task Forces like Manticore and Citadel.
A Dark/Energy. Darks are supposed to be some of the top all-around tanks once they get some IOs and defense. Being a resist set, if you stack that with a good defense, it should be a really good tank. This tank does definitely need a little more management than the invul though. This tank basically survives by using it's health leech power, Dark Regeneration, between taking damage, and if you're not on the ball with the timing, you will bite the dust. The knockback was also sort of irritating, and a bit dangerous if you get KB'ed when you need to hit your leech power, so I fixed it up with a Steadfast Defense IO to prevent it.
I decided to take the energy secondary attack set so I could take advantage of the stuns stacking with Dark's Oppressive Gloom. I've just gotten this tank up to the level where I can take OG (L26) and it works beautifully, with Lieutenants and Bosses getting stunned the way the Minions were before OG. The health loss is is well covered by the leech healing, which is really nice. The mobs wander a bit out of AOE range sometimes, but there's always more mobs crowding in, since I play at -1Lvl x5 heroes solo.
Previously I'd played dark up to 15 as a dark/dark, but I didn't like how it didn't have a quick charging AOE attack. I've also played as dark/fire up to the mid 30s too, but I didn't like that fire didn't have anything to help mitigate damage, which occurs with regularity on a resist set like dark. At the time IOs weren't available though, so today it could have been a different story.
The ability to customize the effects also helped a lot too, since I don't especially like the dark effects and the stealth cloak turning you into a shapeless blob. I set up this tank with a grey-white set of effects that look like hot steam pouring out of the tank, and I named it "Steam Powered Tank".
Upsen.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
CIty of Heroes - City of Villains
I've been spending some time playing CoH lately, or rather, CoV - I started two Masterminds using the new demon-summoning primary. The little creatures you summon are surprisingly durable with a good resistance, and the 2nd tier critter has a property of improving the already good resistance. It makes for a pretty easy time keeping them all alive using some secondary powers. In my case I used Pain Domination and Dark Miasma. They have been a ton of fun to play. Previously the characters were either too management intensive. (Necro/Dark for example) or too automatic (Bots/FF for example) There were probably some better combos of powers than the ones I chose, but I like certain combinations of powersets and I feel that certain other ones are so unrelated that they are a little weird for me to play. (Ninjas/Forcefields? Thugs/Dark netherworld powers in the same character?) By about L8-10 I would be falling asleep on my keyboard, unfortunately.
Both MMs are around L20-25, and that also allows me to unlock one of the villain epic archetypes (VEATs) as well, since they lowered the requirement from 50 down to 20. So I have a "Widow Upsen" running around at L12 right now as well, mostly specced for melee. I hear its supposed to play a little like a Claws/Super Reflexes sort, but there is sadly, pretty low defenses at this stage. I don't see where the additional defense even comes from down the tree, that would make it come anywhere close to a /SR. There is a scaling resistance that is straight out of the SR playbook, and I seem to spend a lot of time using that resistance. (I.e., I am hit a lot and the defenses suck) I wonder what the deal is. I guess I could play her on the ranged spec instead and be an extra tough blaster type?
Anyways, since I still don't really like the Villains maps too much, I ended up creating a new defender as well - an Empathy/Sonic. Simple and fun, I ran around a bit and even bumped into Kin Arad online, who I have not seen for ages, and got a little bit of team play in with one of their alts. (so unfamiliar after so much soloing. 8)
So that's basically the last month or so now. One funny thing is now I'm one of the players that is occasionally disappearing to feed the baby and change their diaper, hence the majority of my time spent soloing.
Upsen.
Both MMs are around L20-25, and that also allows me to unlock one of the villain epic archetypes (VEATs) as well, since they lowered the requirement from 50 down to 20. So I have a "Widow Upsen" running around at L12 right now as well, mostly specced for melee. I hear its supposed to play a little like a Claws/Super Reflexes sort, but there is sadly, pretty low defenses at this stage. I don't see where the additional defense even comes from down the tree, that would make it come anywhere close to a /SR. There is a scaling resistance that is straight out of the SR playbook, and I seem to spend a lot of time using that resistance. (I.e., I am hit a lot and the defenses suck) I wonder what the deal is. I guess I could play her on the ranged spec instead and be an extra tough blaster type?
Anyways, since I still don't really like the Villains maps too much, I ended up creating a new defender as well - an Empathy/Sonic. Simple and fun, I ran around a bit and even bumped into Kin Arad online, who I have not seen for ages, and got a little bit of team play in with one of their alts. (so unfamiliar after so much soloing. 8)
So that's basically the last month or so now. One funny thing is now I'm one of the players that is occasionally disappearing to feed the baby and change their diaper, hence the majority of my time spent soloing.
Upsen.
Friday, April 9, 2010
CIty of Heroes - Kinetic Melee powerset
There's a lot of info that was released at the last PAX conference.
There's going to be a Kinetic Melee power set to be added to Tanks, Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers, as part of the upcoming "Going Rogue" expansion. It's a slightly 'longer range' melee set, probably in the neighbourhood of 10-15 foot range, like many higher tier attacks in the existing melee powersets. (Isn't think a little redundant with Energy Melee? I mean, people are arguing that there is no Kinetic Armor set because there is already a Energy Armor
Also there is supposed to be some sort of modification made to defender Vigilance. Vigilance currently reduces endurance consumption when you have more people in your group. There's a lot of speculation, people are saying it's something that is supposed to help defenders solo a bit better. Probably some sort of damage increase based on team size. :P
Another thing of interest is that they are adding some sort of advancement system for L50 characters, that is going to be called the Incarnate System. I hope this isn't going to be like Everquest's AAXP system where hardcore players had thousands of AAXP and casual players were not acceptable for raiding unless they had x amount of AAXP.
Upsen.
There's going to be a Kinetic Melee power set to be added to Tanks, Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers, as part of the upcoming "Going Rogue" expansion. It's a slightly 'longer range' melee set, probably in the neighbourhood of 10-15 foot range, like many higher tier attacks in the existing melee powersets. (Isn't think a little redundant with Energy Melee? I mean, people are arguing that there is no Kinetic Armor set because there is already a Energy Armor
Also there is supposed to be some sort of modification made to defender Vigilance. Vigilance currently reduces endurance consumption when you have more people in your group. There's a lot of speculation, people are saying it's something that is supposed to help defenders solo a bit better. Probably some sort of damage increase based on team size. :P
Another thing of interest is that they are adding some sort of advancement system for L50 characters, that is going to be called the Incarnate System. I hope this isn't going to be like Everquest's AAXP system where hardcore players had thousands of AAXP and casual players were not acceptable for raiding unless they had x amount of AAXP.
Upsen.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
City of Heroes - Issue 17: Dark Mirror
It looks like there's going to be a graphics rendering update for City of Heroes in Issue 17, coming in April. The details on the COH website show some nicely upgraded screens, but I guess the character models aren't going to be updated, just the scenery.
Out of a bunch of nice features like mailing your alts influence and taking 7 missions at a time instead of 3, I like the Posi change the best.
Positron is going to be cut into 2 Task Forces. About time, that particular task force was absolutely brutal, low level characters forced to fight against no-resist toxic DOT attacks, as well as enemy holds before you get any hold resistance. the second half looks like it's going to take place in the Faultline Dam. Didn't we hear something about a TF in Faultline, way, way, WAY back in time? 8)
I might go back and try this out when it gets released!
Upsen.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
City of Heroes - Going Rogue
The upcoming Going Rogue upgrade for City of Heroes got a site update today - they've added in a Dual Pistols powerset, which is available right now if you purchase the upgrade, and a Demon Summoning powerset which is available some time in April.
Interesting tactic, selling packages now, so you can use the powersets, and then releasing the actual upgrade in July with all the maps and story/missions after they're done composing them.
Anyways, the video on their site shows off some really cool looking Gun-fu moves, and the pistols even have slides that cycle back and forth as the pistols fire. I'd comment on the shell casings flying around too, but CoH has always had that nice little feature for their shooty heroes and villains. 8) It would be kind of cool to check these out if there's ever a free play week or something like that in the future.
Upsen.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Progress Quest
Once, way back when I was still playing Everquest, I came across this little satire of the MMO genre. The "selling point" of this free RPG is that the game automates all those annoying little things that you come across in regular RPG games, like navigating endless terrain, selling loot, buying upgrades, grinding trash mobs, and completing quests.
Basically the game plays itself and you watch it play. Or not watch it play and check up on it once in a while, since you don't have to be at the keyboard to play it. You can either check on the PC you have the character saved on, or on the game's home page. You can even check your progress in a handy facebook application too, I suppose if your workplace has banned the Progress Quest homepage. (sneaky!)
Yes, I found it again just yesterday and have installed it, haha. :P
While it doesn't really do anything, it is sort of soothing to watch. (listen to the addict talk, eh?) Maybe its like light therapy or radiation therapy or something.
Upsen.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Lord of the Rings: Mirkwood
The new update is out for LOTRO. Handy that, since I just hit Level 60 with my guardian character. Now I'll be able to slag my way up to Level 65 while I get in good with the Elves of Mirkwood.
One of the new options available is a set of shared bank slots - no more mailing fees between characters. Very convenient.
One interesting change I saw when I logged in was in crafting - my armoursmith character's recipes no longer required animal pelts, instead using another measure of metal ore. What gives with that? Learning to work hides cost me a pretty penny (plus much time gaining reputation points to access superior workbenches) - and now its out of the equation? Why even bother having the Tailor skill alongside the Metalsmithing skill in the Armourer profession any more? We could replace it with something more useful, like Scholar to research armouring techniques (and give us the ability to craft our own bonus-to-crit items, haha)
Another thing changed - all of my -incoming damages skills and items have been converted into +defense, which technically is -damage. I guess they wanted to consolidate the stat instead of having to work with 2 separate systems.
Upsen.
One of the new options available is a set of shared bank slots - no more mailing fees between characters. Very convenient.
One interesting change I saw when I logged in was in crafting - my armoursmith character's recipes no longer required animal pelts, instead using another measure of metal ore. What gives with that? Learning to work hides cost me a pretty penny (plus much time gaining reputation points to access superior workbenches) - and now its out of the equation? Why even bother having the Tailor skill alongside the Metalsmithing skill in the Armourer profession any more? We could replace it with something more useful, like Scholar to research armouring techniques (and give us the ability to craft our own bonus-to-crit items, haha)
Another thing changed - all of my -incoming damages skills and items have been converted into +defense, which technically is -damage. I guess they wanted to consolidate the stat instead of having to work with 2 separate systems.
Upsen.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
LOTRO Quickslotting
The default keys in LOTRO I found hard to use, so I remapped most of it. Now i can run around and target anything, choosing enemy, players, NPCs, and objects in the games with the touch of one key for each type. Best of it being for the mining - I can ride up to a mining node, press 4 buttons, and queue up getting off the horse, target the node, mine the node, and get back up on the horse. I suppose I could write a game alias/macro in the system they provide, but this is as far as I've gone so far and its not too bad.
I also mapped all the quickslots to easier to reach keys like the function keys and the numpad - I have my guardian reactive parry chains going up the numpad so I can see the branching paths more clearly. I wish I did that earlier for some of my other games, it probably would have saved a lot of carpal tunnel grief. Eg, Num0-1-4-7 is a parry bleed chain, Num0-2-5 is a parry stun chain, and I can easily change my mind about which chain to continue on before I get to the home row of the numpad. (Num0-2-5-7 when I get the skill "To The King". Basically I can put the reactive charts here onto the numpad.)
The 2-key combos are generally things I will just click on instead of trying to find the 2-key combo.
Upsen.
I also mapped all the quickslots to easier to reach keys like the function keys and the numpad - I have my guardian reactive parry chains going up the numpad so I can see the branching paths more clearly. I wish I did that earlier for some of my other games, it probably would have saved a lot of carpal tunnel grief. Eg, Num0-1-4-7 is a parry bleed chain, Num0-2-5 is a parry stun chain, and I can easily change my mind about which chain to continue on before I get to the home row of the numpad. (Num0-2-5-7 when I get the skill "To The King". Basically I can put the reactive charts here onto the numpad.)
The 2-key combos are generally things I will just click on instead of trying to find the 2-key combo.
Upsen.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Lord of the Rings Online
Back a couple of years ago, I used to play Lord of the Rings Online. I got fairly far into the game, even picked up on some crafting and stuff. I can't even remember why I stopped playing, though it has to be some sort of disinterest, or something else caught my eye. Anyways, I was L49 of a possible 50 when I stopped playing, and an up and coming armour smith.
I picked it up again in the past week, since I have a lifetime subscription to the game, and found that many things had changed. So changed, in fact, that I had to start a new character from the ground up in order to relearn what all of my character's special buttons were. By about L20 (roughly the course of the week) I had figured out enough to get going again on my main.
On my main guardian character, I was basically levelled to 50 right away on killing a single foe. I guess there were some xp changes, since I remember being a distance away from L50.
Also, I started armoring again with the load of stuff I still had stashed away. The game's made a lot of changes to the armourer profession and it looks like I have a bunch of recipes that are marked as (OLD). Apparently it's a lot easier now, with 'crests' that are basically for levelling up, and don't require any leather like the armors. You can only make a certain number of crests per time period though. Now I have to find out what all the L50-60 stuff is about.
Anyways, more as I figure it out.
Upsen.
I picked it up again in the past week, since I have a lifetime subscription to the game, and found that many things had changed. So changed, in fact, that I had to start a new character from the ground up in order to relearn what all of my character's special buttons were. By about L20 (roughly the course of the week) I had figured out enough to get going again on my main.
On my main guardian character, I was basically levelled to 50 right away on killing a single foe. I guess there were some xp changes, since I remember being a distance away from L50.
Also, I started armoring again with the load of stuff I still had stashed away. The game's made a lot of changes to the armourer profession and it looks like I have a bunch of recipes that are marked as (OLD). Apparently it's a lot easier now, with 'crests' that are basically for levelling up, and don't require any leather like the armors. You can only make a certain number of crests per time period though. Now I have to find out what all the L50-60 stuff is about.
Anyways, more as I figure it out.
Upsen.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Champions Online - Decided against buying it.
I cancelled my preorder at the local EB, cause I wouldn't be getting the preorder bonuses or headstart from the beta program.
The reason is because of an account name issue. When I originally signed up on the Champions forum back in early 2008, they asked for a user login name, so I put in "Upsen_Downs". That was also the display name, but its not that big a deal, it is just a forum.
Feb 2008 -
Forum Login/Display name: Upsen_Downs
Later on, somehow that forum changes software or something, and split things up so that there is a separate login name and display name. Doh, I could have used that feature! Well, thanks a lot but I guess it's not too bad, it is just a forum.
Aug 2009 -
Forum Login: Upsen_Downs
Forum Display Name: Upsen_Downs
Then, I find out that the forum login is the same as the game login. This part is not good at all, I don't like it.
The Forum display name becomes the in game global identifier which is all right.
Aug 2009-
Forum Login: Upsen_Downs
Forum Display Name: Upsen_Downs
Game Login: Upsen_Downs
Game Global Name: Upsen_Downs
Now, I *want* to use the name Upsen_Downs in the game, but I dont want it to be the same as my game login!
I contacted their various support teams 3 times to try and get some help getting my account name changed. However their invioable policy states that they do not change login names. Something about the system being unable to change that sort of detail, sigh. They said for me to just open a new account to use my actual game key, and that they would not transfer anything from my old account, including my beta key bonuses (most importantly, a basic flying superpower, the whole point of preordering)
Apparently, I screwed myself over by signing up for their website early and chatting with other people who were interested in the development of the game.
Anyways, they changed my forum display name to Unhappy_Upsen, one of the 3 alternatives I listed in my "please help me" emails. Which doesn't hide my login at all, since the old name is clearly quoted several times in threads discussing login name problems.
For me, Champs has been one disappointment after another. Between the frustrating Fileplanet experience, the comedic style gameplay/characters, the botched account info, loss of my preorder bonuses, and the inability of their support department to help me out, I had enough.
I'm just glad that I didn't actually have to buy the game or give them a credit card number.
Upsen.
The reason is because of an account name issue. When I originally signed up on the Champions forum back in early 2008, they asked for a user login name, so I put in "Upsen_Downs". That was also the display name, but its not that big a deal, it is just a forum.
Feb 2008 -
Forum Login/Display name: Upsen_Downs
Later on, somehow that forum changes software or something, and split things up so that there is a separate login name and display name. Doh, I could have used that feature! Well, thanks a lot but I guess it's not too bad, it is just a forum.
Aug 2009 -
Forum Login: Upsen_Downs
Forum Display Name: Upsen_Downs
Then, I find out that the forum login is the same as the game login. This part is not good at all, I don't like it.
The Forum display name becomes the in game global identifier which is all right.
Aug 2009-
Forum Login: Upsen_Downs
Forum Display Name: Upsen_Downs
Game Login: Upsen_Downs
Game Global Name: Upsen_Downs
Now, I *want* to use the name Upsen_Downs in the game, but I dont want it to be the same as my game login!
I contacted their various support teams 3 times to try and get some help getting my account name changed. However their invioable policy states that they do not change login names. Something about the system being unable to change that sort of detail, sigh. They said for me to just open a new account to use my actual game key, and that they would not transfer anything from my old account, including my beta key bonuses (most importantly, a basic flying superpower, the whole point of preordering)
Apparently, I screwed myself over by signing up for their website early and chatting with other people who were interested in the development of the game.
Anyways, they changed my forum display name to Unhappy_Upsen, one of the 3 alternatives I listed in my "please help me" emails. Which doesn't hide my login at all, since the old name is clearly quoted several times in threads discussing login name problems.
For me, Champs has been one disappointment after another. Between the frustrating Fileplanet experience, the comedic style gameplay/characters, the botched account info, loss of my preorder bonuses, and the inability of their support department to help me out, I had enough.
I'm just glad that I didn't actually have to buy the game or give them a credit card number.
Upsen.
CS Response
Wed, 08/26/2009
Wed, 08/26/2009
Thank you for contacting Cryptic Studios Billing Support.
Your display name has been changed to Unhappy_Upsen. Not being able to change the account name is due to how our system is set up, so there is not currently a way around it on any level.
Setting up a new account when the game goes live would let you choose a new account name. We would not be able to transfer your old accounts information though.
Thank you for your patience!
Your display name has been changed to Unhappy_Upsen. Not being able to change the account name is due to how our system is set up, so there is not currently a way around it on any level.
Setting up a new account when the game goes live would let you choose a new account name. We would not be able to transfer your old accounts information though.
Thank you for your patience!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Champions Online Open Beta Second Impression
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Phew this is turning into an essay.Not a very good impression. I couldn't log in for most of the night. After I managed to log in, I was stuck under the world. Something popped me above the ground after a while, but I kept rubberbanding back to the same spot and couldn't get anywhere.
Upsen.
Upsen.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Champions Online Open Beta First Impression
Well after it's all installed and working, I logged in and tried some of the game.
The powers you can select from are impressively varied - everything from swords to guns to fists, from magic to mecha, even supernatural and void.
The costumes are really nice too, many, many choices available. (though none of the armor seems to cover joints terribly well)
The faces really do leave something to be desired. No slider has a strong effect on changing the facial shape in a meaningful, appealing way. You can select a long round nose or a short round nose. No pointy noses or noses with a high bridge. You can choose thick lips or thin lips but you can't make the mouth bigger or smaller, or get rid of the outward curl in the upper lip. You can't create say, high cheekbones that look high, they are always engulfed by the round face/chins. There aren't separate chin/jawbone sliders that let you get away from the Incredibles style square jaw. The necks dont connect to the head properly.
In my opinion, the male faces always look like the dad from the movie "The Incredibles" and the female faces always look like they have Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. (google "indistinct philtrum" images.)
They default a pose and a costume where the character is hard to edit, with facemasks and long hair covering any sliding work you're doing with the ears and eyes. You actually have to go forward a few screens to where the costumes are, remove the hair and mask, and back up to the facial editor. Why make us jump through hoops to use the features presented?
The females get a boob slider that is always maxed out on all the template choices. Frankly, the first zoomed-in editing screen for editing the head showcases the breasts more than the head. Especially if you try to rotate the character for a 3/4 profile of the head. The view stretches the side of the breast in a really weird manner.
The various poses, while cool and dynamic, tend to bend more like cartoons than people. In the middle of editing, those poses are irritating as they keep moving the body & face out of the view that you are trying to line up for editing. The default should be something that doesn't move around so much! We can choose the cool poses later after we have designed faces and dressed our characters right?
After getting into the game, I played for about an hour or so of the tutorial. The interfaces and graphics styles are pretty cartoon comic feeling. The running animations and attacks I was exposed to, it's like we're playing something that doesn't try to take itself seriously. I'm exaggerating a bit of course, but the cool factor contains more Jackie Chan than Jet Li, there is a comedic effect somehow. Instead of Luke Wilson we are getting Owen Wilson. Its less like Chip and more like Dale. Its not "I'm cool", its "Hey look I'm cool, woo!!!" What is the term? :P Its like a parody of itself.
It's fun but its not serious enough. That would be my first impression.
I am low on sleep so I'll ramble another time.
Upsen.
The powers you can select from are impressively varied - everything from swords to guns to fists, from magic to mecha, even supernatural and void.
The costumes are really nice too, many, many choices available. (though none of the armor seems to cover joints terribly well)
The faces really do leave something to be desired. No slider has a strong effect on changing the facial shape in a meaningful, appealing way. You can select a long round nose or a short round nose. No pointy noses or noses with a high bridge. You can choose thick lips or thin lips but you can't make the mouth bigger or smaller, or get rid of the outward curl in the upper lip. You can't create say, high cheekbones that look high, they are always engulfed by the round face/chins. There aren't separate chin/jawbone sliders that let you get away from the Incredibles style square jaw. The necks dont connect to the head properly.
In my opinion, the male faces always look like the dad from the movie "The Incredibles" and the female faces always look like they have Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. (google "indistinct philtrum" images.)
They default a pose and a costume where the character is hard to edit, with facemasks and long hair covering any sliding work you're doing with the ears and eyes. You actually have to go forward a few screens to where the costumes are, remove the hair and mask, and back up to the facial editor. Why make us jump through hoops to use the features presented?
The females get a boob slider that is always maxed out on all the template choices. Frankly, the first zoomed-in editing screen for editing the head showcases the breasts more than the head. Especially if you try to rotate the character for a 3/4 profile of the head. The view stretches the side of the breast in a really weird manner.
The various poses, while cool and dynamic, tend to bend more like cartoons than people. In the middle of editing, those poses are irritating as they keep moving the body & face out of the view that you are trying to line up for editing. The default should be something that doesn't move around so much! We can choose the cool poses later after we have designed faces and dressed our characters right?
After getting into the game, I played for about an hour or so of the tutorial. The interfaces and graphics styles are pretty cartoon comic feeling. The running animations and attacks I was exposed to, it's like we're playing something that doesn't try to take itself seriously. I'm exaggerating a bit of course, but the cool factor contains more Jackie Chan than Jet Li, there is a comedic effect somehow. Instead of Luke Wilson we are getting Owen Wilson. Its less like Chip and more like Dale. Its not "I'm cool", its "Hey look I'm cool, woo!!!" What is the term? :P Its like a parody of itself.
It's fun but its not serious enough. That would be my first impression.
I am low on sleep so I'll ramble another time.
Upsen.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Champions Online installer is patching
Well I have the installer now and it is starting it's patching process. It seems to run in short bursts, and it will take a few hours to complete if it continues on. It's disconnected once while I was uploading this image, but it did change the patch remaining amount from 930ish megs down to 790ish megs when I restarted it. Hopefully it'll stay connected and be ready by tonight.
Upsen.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Champions Online installer woes
(with edits now that I'm a little calmer, I was quite irritated earlier.)
I had a heck of a time with Fileplanet. Fileplanet is the official, exclusive source of the Champions Online Beta installer.
They make you download a ad-driven DL program to pick up their files. Fileplanet also makes you wait before you can start downloading, unless you pay them for a subscription. In the Champions Online beta, the wait was listed as roughly 30 to 60 minutes. However, in reality, the wait was closer to 4 hours.
There are several servers to choose from - 2 west coast, 2 east coast, a mid-western one, and a Euro server, along with an estimated wait time, roughly 40-50 minutes when I started. Once you choose one, you see the time on the installer. After a while, the estimated time goes up and down, but your place in the queue stays the same.
It seems the estimated time is for the whole queue and not your position. I watched it fluctuate from a low of 32 minutes up to a high of 300 minutes, and it was always 30 or more minutes even when I was number 1 or 2 on the queue. I wish there was a distinction made, since I quit two queues to switch to different ones, wasting an hour's worth of queue time.
While waiting in the queue, I found a torrent link for the full patch. If you want to try and look it up too, check BTMon (or google it) and search there for "Champions online - Open Beta client-installer". I dont know if it's authentic or not to be honest, but it made me feel better that I was getting a 40k stream on torrent since I had nothing from Fileplanet for hours. Once the Fileplanet queueing was done though, I got a good 500k stream from them.
By estimates, BT= 13 hours continuous, and FP = 1 hour after a 4 hour wait.
This whole fileplanet mess was quite the annoyance and lowered my expectations of Champions Online. Hopefully the game and it's patching process will improve in the future. By a lot, please.
Upsen.
I had a heck of a time with Fileplanet. Fileplanet is the official, exclusive source of the Champions Online Beta installer.
They make you download a ad-driven DL program to pick up their files. Fileplanet also makes you wait before you can start downloading, unless you pay them for a subscription. In the Champions Online beta, the wait was listed as roughly 30 to 60 minutes. However, in reality, the wait was closer to 4 hours.
There are several servers to choose from - 2 west coast, 2 east coast, a mid-western one, and a Euro server, along with an estimated wait time, roughly 40-50 minutes when I started. Once you choose one, you see the time on the installer. After a while, the estimated time goes up and down, but your place in the queue stays the same.
It seems the estimated time is for the whole queue and not your position. I watched it fluctuate from a low of 32 minutes up to a high of 300 minutes, and it was always 30 or more minutes even when I was number 1 or 2 on the queue. I wish there was a distinction made, since I quit two queues to switch to different ones, wasting an hour's worth of queue time.
While waiting in the queue, I found a torrent link for the full patch. If you want to try and look it up too, check BTMon (or google it) and search there for "Champions online - Open Beta client-installer". I dont know if it's authentic or not to be honest, but it made me feel better that I was getting a 40k stream on torrent since I had nothing from Fileplanet for hours. Once the Fileplanet queueing was done though, I got a good 500k stream from them.
By estimates, BT= 13 hours continuous, and FP = 1 hour after a 4 hour wait.
This whole fileplanet mess was quite the annoyance and lowered my expectations of Champions Online. Hopefully the game and it's patching process will improve in the future. By a lot, please.
Upsen.
Monday, April 20, 2009
IO stagnation
I changed some of the plans for Tenmos, my tank.
Gave up on finding Ragnarok IOs and went for a set of Positron's Blast instead. For right cheap too - I spent about 50 million on all 5 of them. I still want the Eradications and the last Obliteration, even though the tank seems to be surviving everything. Except maybe a Mission Architect killer-deathtrap that Mira Moonshadow made from my Renaissance de la Veritas SG. I did last until the rest of the SG team were almost back from the hospital though.
I've been playing a Dark Melee/Shields scrapper and it's at L40 pretty easily. Put together a few decent IOs for him too, to try and cap up the defenses, but I've decided against trying to super-IO him. Its just too time consuming.
Also made a Peacebringer Nova which is about L18.
Tank IO list:
* 1 x Miracle: Heal/EndRdx (40) forget about it.
(have a placeholder Mira H/E/R right now)
* 1 x Reactive Armor: ResDam/EndRdx (40) forget about it.
(placeholder low level version)
* 1 x Apocalypse: Dmg/Rchg (50)
* 1 x Apocalypse: Acc/Dmg/Rchg (50)
* 1 x Apocalypse: Acc/Rchg (50)
* 1 x Apocalypse: Dmg/EndRdx (50)
* 1 x Apocalypse: Dam% (50)
* 1 x Eradication: Dmg (30)
* 1 x Eradication: Acc/Rchg (30)
* 1 x Eradication: Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg (30)
* 1 x Eradication: %Dam (30)
* 1 x Obliteration: Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg (50)
Gave up on finding Ragnarok IOs and went for a set of Positron's Blast instead. For right cheap too - I spent about 50 million on all 5 of them. I still want the Eradications and the last Obliteration, even though the tank seems to be surviving everything. Except maybe a Mission Architect killer-deathtrap that Mira Moonshadow made from my Renaissance de la Veritas SG. I did last until the rest of the SG team were almost back from the hospital though.
I've been playing a Dark Melee/Shields scrapper and it's at L40 pretty easily. Put together a few decent IOs for him too, to try and cap up the defenses, but I've decided against trying to super-IO him. Its just too time consuming.
Also made a Peacebringer Nova which is about L18.
Tank IO list:
* 1 x Miracle: Heal/EndRdx (40) forget about it.
(have a placeholder Mira H/E/R right now)
* 1 x Reactive Armor: ResDam/EndRdx (40) forget about it.
(placeholder low level version)
* 1 x Apocalypse: Dmg/Rchg (50)
* 1 x Apocalypse: Acc/Dmg/Rchg (50)
* 1 x Apocalypse: Acc/Rchg (50)
* 1 x Apocalypse: Dmg/EndRdx (50)
* 1 x Apocalypse: Dam% (50)
* 1 x Eradication: Dmg (30)
* 1 x Eradication: Acc/Rchg (30)
* 1 x Eradication: Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg (30)
* 1 x Eradication: %Dam (30)
* 1 x Obliteration: Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg (50)
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Over 3000 HP now!
Tenmos broke the 3000hp mark today when I got all the Luck of the Gambler IOs that I needed. This is the toughest tank I've ever had in the game so far.
Upsen.
Upsen.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
IO Shopping List
Edit March 1st -
Here is the current shopping list. Those purple IOs are currently listing in the 70-100million range each, scary stuff.
Upsen.
Here is the current shopping list. Those purple IOs are currently listing in the 70-100million range each, scary stuff.
Upsen.
- 1 x Miracle: Heal/EndRdx (40)
(have a placeholder Mira H/E/R right now) - 1 x Pounding Slugfest: Stun% (30) optional*
- 1 x Reactive Armor: ResDam/EndRdx (40)
(placeholder low level version) - 1 x Apocalypse: Dmg/Rchg (50)
- 1 x Apocalypse: Acc/Dmg/Rchg (50)
- 1 x Apocalypse: Acc/Rchg (50)
- 1 x Apocalypse: Dmg/EndRdx (50)
- 1 x Apocalypse: Dam% (50)
- 1 x Ragnarok: Dmg (50)
- 1 x Ragnarok: Dmg/Rchg (50)
- 1 x Ragnarok: Acc/Dmg/Rchg (50)
- 1 x Ragnarok: Acc/Rchg (50)
- 1 x Ragnarok: Dmg/EndRdx (50)
- 1 x Eradication: Dmg (30)
- 1 x Eradication: Acc/Rchg (30)
- 1 x Eradication: Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg (30)
- 1 x Eradication: %Dam (30)
- 1 x Obliteration: Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg (50)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Slotting +Regen and +Recovery into RttC is strange
There's something buggy about slotting the +regen/+recovery IOs in Willpower's Rise to the Challenge. The amount of health and endurance recovered scales with the opponent you are fighting. At first I thought, oh, maybe it's scaling with the number of opponents! That would be pretty cool, but it wasn't the case.
It turns out that it scales based on the level of the opponent that your RttC hits. If you change the foe group you are standing in, the amount of regen from the IO actually changes too. The higher the foe, the less benefit you get. The lower the foe, the more benefit you get. The biggest differential you can get is your L50 fighting a L1 foe, and you should see what crazy numbers you get. Too bad you can't get those numbers in any useful encounter where you actually need them. In a fight with L54s when you really *need* the boosts, they are only running at about half the effectiveness they are supposed to run at.
Tenmos is L50.
Here's the empirical data (some screenshots follow) :
%/s Numi RTis Numi Mira
Lvl Regn Regn Reco Reco
F.H 0.16 0.20 0.17 0.25 <-- Using Fast Healing as a baseline comparison
---------------------------
L01 0.98 1.23 1.00 1.50
L05 0.92 1.14 0.93 1.40
L10 0.83 1.04 0.85 1.28
L15 0.75 0.94 0.77 1.15
L20 0.67 0.84 0.68 1.03
L25 0.59 0.74 0.60 0.90
L30 0.51 0.63 0.52 0.78
L35 0.53 0.42 0.43 0.65
L40 0.34 0.43 0.35 0.53
L42 0.31 0.38 0.31 0.47
L44 0.27 0.34 0.28 0.42
L46 0.24 0.29 0.24 0.36
L48 0.20 0.25 0.20 0.31
L49 0.18 0.23 0.19 0.28
L50 0.16 0.20 0.17 0.25 <-- This is what you get in Fast Healing.
L51 0.15 0.18 0.15 0.23
L52 0.13 0.16 0.13 0.20
L53 0.11 0.13 0.11 0.16
L54 0.08 0.10 0.08 0.12
If anyone has their +regen/+recovery IOs slotted into Fitness:Health, can you give me the percentages?
Thanks,
Upsen.
It turns out that it scales based on the level of the opponent that your RttC hits. If you change the foe group you are standing in, the amount of regen from the IO actually changes too. The higher the foe, the less benefit you get. The lower the foe, the more benefit you get. The biggest differential you can get is your L50 fighting a L1 foe, and you should see what crazy numbers you get. Too bad you can't get those numbers in any useful encounter where you actually need them. In a fight with L54s when you really *need* the boosts, they are only running at about half the effectiveness they are supposed to run at.
Tenmos is L50.
Here's the empirical data (some screenshots follow) :
%/s Numi RTis Numi Mira
Lvl Regn Regn Reco Reco
F.H 0.16 0.20 0.17 0.25 <-- Using Fast Healing as a baseline comparison
---------------------------
L01 0.98 1.23 1.00 1.50
L05 0.92 1.14 0.93 1.40
L10 0.83 1.04 0.85 1.28
L15 0.75 0.94 0.77 1.15
L20 0.67 0.84 0.68 1.03
L25 0.59 0.74 0.60 0.90
L30 0.51 0.63 0.52 0.78
L35 0.53 0.42 0.43 0.65
L40 0.34 0.43 0.35 0.53
L42 0.31 0.38 0.31 0.47
L44 0.27 0.34 0.28 0.42
L46 0.24 0.29 0.24 0.36
L48 0.20 0.25 0.20 0.31
L49 0.18 0.23 0.19 0.28
L50 0.16 0.20 0.17 0.25 <-- This is what you get in Fast Healing.
L51 0.15 0.18 0.15 0.23
L52 0.13 0.16 0.13 0.20
L53 0.11 0.13 0.11 0.16
L54 0.08 0.10 0.08 0.12
If anyone has their +regen/+recovery IOs slotted into Fitness:Health, can you give me the percentages?
Thanks,
Upsen.
Level 1 foes
L25 Foes
L50 Foes (same as slotting in Fast Healing)
L54 Foes
What Numina and Miracle numbers look like in Fast Healing
Monday, February 16, 2009
Almost 50 but not quite
I've been on a merit craze in order to get Invention Origin set enhancements for Tenmos. It's actually coming along - I have just over half the IOs that I want to get, besides the hard to get purple sets I want. I've changed my build around more times than I care to remember - I've even sold off IOs I didn't think I'd need, only to find out I still want them after all in the next version of the build.
I mildly regret giving up on the Willpower/Superstrength version of Tenmos - SS is really the powerhouse offense set for tanks. It just does that much more damage, and gets all this to-hit bonus on top, if I could just live with the rage crashes. I can console myself in that the fire AOEs are a bit better than SS's AOE. Maybe I'll build an Invul/SS later on after Tenmos is completely done.
I mildly regret giving up on the Willpower/Superstrength version of Tenmos - SS is really the powerhouse offense set for tanks. It just does that much more damage, and gets all this to-hit bonus on top, if I could just live with the rage crashes. I can console myself in that the fire AOEs are a bit better than SS's AOE. Maybe I'll build an Invul/SS later on after Tenmos is completely done.
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