Alien Invasion Ends City Of Heroes Beta

Thanks to the City Of Heroes forums for its reports on the Rikti alien invasion which signaled the end of the PC MMO's Beta phase. Elsewhere, there's also a large gallery of screenshots from this major Beta-ending event involving "a major [alien] strike... against Paragon City", and starring the other-dimensional villains from Cryptic Studios' superhero-based MMO game, which officially launches on April 28th. The event coincided with the wiping of the Beta characters - hence high-level alien-inflicted carnage, with "75-100 [heroes] just lying dead in Atlas Park", as well as the original poster's delight that he "managed to organize a mass suicide jump... before the Beta ended. About 20 of us jumped off the tallest building... [but] we all just sat at 1 HP." Update: 04/23 18:55 GMT by S : A press release from NCSoft regarding their E3 line-up announces plans for first expansion pack, City Of Villains, which "will allow players to take on the role of villain in Paragon's modern metropolis."

Re:This was actually not really that cool.

[Delf]

So, you joined a Beta Test, participated in an event that had Stress Test written all over it, and either you or they fell off the performance curve. Sounds like the developers got the data they were looking for. And given that everyone had the framerate issues, it sounds like that was a server issue, not client-limited. Which means they have a better shot at fixing it before they go live and the crowds descend. It's all good.

You can't judge the game by late-beta performance when they're obviously stress testing. And the fact that they got around to stress testing before they went live is a good sign, it means they probably have their other bugs under control. Anyone who's been in on the last few MMOG launches can tell you what happens when launch day *is* the stress test, and they won't be saying nice things.

If I'm being pissy/jealous it's because they once again scheduled a beta event for a time when us west-coasties were still at work or stuck in traffic trying to get home. Wah.

Re:This was actually not really that cool.

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

I think I hit maybe, 6 of the hundreds of Rikti invaders. This isn't killed, mind you...I was doing around 11-17 points of damage to these guys while they were hitting me for upwards of 200. These guys were spawning in groups of 25-30, and I was able to target and touch 6. There's something wrong here.

Here's what's wrong. You were in Steel Canyon at level 9. What did you expect? Normal mobs there should eat you for breakfast at that level. Of COURSE uber invaders will. THey're geared towards the levels that are SUPPOSED to be in that zone.

Nevermind the other issues. Remember, this was a BETA TEST. not solely for the entertainment of the testers, but to find out HOW to do these invasions properly. I participated in many defenses in many zones, and in no two cases was the wave or waves of invaders handled the same way. I saw the "friendly/non-targetable/non-hostile" bug (in at least one case these appeared to be intentional decoys, however), and a few other problems. Better now than when the game is live...

Re:This was actually not really that cool.

[Alkaiser]

The part with me not killing them wasn't the problem. I fully expected that. The only reason I was in Steel Canyon was because I was finishing a mission there from the day before.

The part where I was able to target and touch *6* of the invaders was. I didn't care that I would die, but I wanted to PARTICIPATE. I was either blocked in by other heroes, or lagged so heavily, I couldn't locate a target before it was moved out of my melee range. As I say later in my post, I moved on to Atlas Park, where enemies were in my level range, and I still couldn't hit any of them due to the exact same problems in Steel Canyon.

The purpose of the Beta Test and the purpose of the POSTING are two entirely different things. This was a reply to someone saying the event was really cool, and me saying, "No, it in fact, was not."

I'm sure as a Beta Test this was very successful, and insightful for the Cryptic and NCSoft folks. You don't hear me saying, "Oh, I wouldn't recommend buying CoH based off of this occurance." However, as I've said twice before, if you were not ranged, the alien attack wasn't fun, it didn't have any sort of conclusion, and it was horribly lagged.

Re:Rikti Invasion

[schapman]

not to flame.. but you are basically saying that you didn't get a good framerate as they were stress testing. the 100+ heroes in one area not doing good is YOUR machine.. not their fault... list some specs so we can see if it's reasonable. Do you expect them to drop the quality level of the whole game because your machine can't keep up. Some of us are willing to spend the extra to make our games look good, and run well... and I don't think we should be punished because of people who expect their old machine to play everything current. Lag is their fault, but it was beta... an d they were obviously stress testing, so what did you expect. They basically gave you a cool event while at the same time getting important info so they can tweak their servers and make it better for the masses.

Re:They should do this for all MMORGs

[monkeyfinger]

He looks out the window, sees the "real world" and goes and builds up himself instead of a fake character

I can relate to this. The two guys I share a house with play computer games obsessively and are in terrible physical shape. I like to play games occasionally, but I go to the gym three times a week as well. I often have the strange experience of coming back from a gruelling workout at the gym to have a fat pasty housemate enthuse about how his character in Anarchy Online is now more powerful because it has levelled or because he has a new implant/buff/nano. At these times I find myself wondering why he doesn't go and "build himself up" instead.

That was one of the best ideas I've heard of.

[josh glaser]

They got to a) stress test the servers and b) kill of everybody's beta characters (in a way that made sense with the story and all) in one fell swoop. If that's the kind of game design CoH represents, well, I'm going to buy it soon. And City of Villains! They actually listen to the players!

What would've been really cool is if all the heroes somehow beat all the aliens, like how some people in EQ beat an "unbeatable" dragon, etc.

Re:Oh god.

[realdpk]

You're right - however, I've played a few MMOGs, and the random events that I was able to participate in (when I was logged in, that is) were very rare. Everquest, they were practically non-existant, and FFXI I only ran in to one "event". It wasn't random, it was scheduled and lasted many days. (Which I'm cool with..) Nothing in Anarchy Online (when I played). I don't remember any such thing happening in UO, but I haven't played it for years.

Maybe I'm just bitter, because I see the potential in these games, and I see how little it is used. I think it's fair to advise others to tone down their expectations too.

Re:That was one of the best ideas I've heard of.

[Alkaiser]

Man, with the way they've handled everything else, aside from the end of Beta event, I'd be utterly shocked if they implemented it as stupidly as other MMOs have. They obviously pay attention to the customer base, so this in't going to be Nerf City.