Alien Invasion Ends City Of Heroes Beta 82
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."
Oh god. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh god. (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe they'll do something different in this game, but it is fair to advise a little restraint when it comes to expectations...
Re:Oh god. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh god. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe I'm just bitter, because I see the potential in these games
Re:Oh god. (Score:1)
Re:Oh god. (Score:2, Interesting)
Clans join together, hopefull dozens, to a couple hundred of mates, and schedule a time to fight for the castle. If you win, you get to build defenses and control local shops (get taxes and such from them) until the next attack; which you schedule, so other clans can sign up to try to take over
Too Bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, the removal of certain colors from being used on your uniforms pretty much punishes the wrong people (some idiots were creating 'nude' uniforms, basically: instead of banning those people, they removed flesh tones from the possible uniform colors).
The beta ending event didn't work across all zones, either, but heck, it is a beta.
Still, despite all that, the beta was a blast and I can't wait for the game.
Re:Too Bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Too Bad... (Score:2, Interesting)
Good on ya
Re:Too Bad... (Score:1)
Variant (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the day, there was a Spider-Man game released for the Sega CD that hinted at this type of possibility. There were levels where you had to run left to right and defeat an end boss but along the way there were old ladies getting mugged on the street that you could save. The most recent Spider-Man video games have focused solely on guiding you from the start of the level to the end boss, with no time to just wander around the city. I'm thinking that if City of Heroes takes off, clones and variants may spring up and provide me with this type of gameplay - which I think a lot of people would enjoy, based on how well GTA sold and how well superhero movies have been doing lately.
Re:Variant (Score:1)
Re:Variant (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Variant (Score:1)
"WTF? I'm glad this is a rental."
Hopefully with the sequel they removed the ridiculous ability to stick webs to the sky, too.
Re:Variant (Score:2)
The developers have said that webs won't stick to the air in the next game. This will make movement more interesting and realistic but potentially awkward.
Re:Variant (Score:2)
http://sardius.fefea.org/reviews/segacd/swingti
They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:5, Interesting)
Guess it's too much to ask for. And yes, I realize this was just the way to end the beta.
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:2)
But, if the game's just a click-fest, you're right: it's no better than gambling.
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:2)
At least when gambling, you can win money.
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:1)
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:5, Funny)
Because the people who play this "gym" MMORG are even bigger dicks than Counterstrike players. Every time I go to the gym, all the high-level people are like "LOL, look at teh n00b". No one will tell me how many bench presses I need to do before I can level up, they just stare at me like I'm stupid or something. And good luck getting a party together to take on the higher-level weights. Half the appeal of MMORGs is the teamwork, but nobody in gym seems to understand that.
Combine that with the tiny gameworld, lack of scenery, and other glaring faults, and it's easy to see that gym is no EverQuest. Maybe if there's a sequel or a patch, I'll look into it, but for now I think I'll spend my entertainment dollar elsewhere.
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:1)
You need a new gym to try! Plenty of "scenery" at mine!
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:1)
ya, but what if you're not gay?
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:2)
I don't know about you but I get good 'scenery' at the gym, and then she comes home with me and we play video games...
But I guess not everyone has a girlfriend as cool as mine...
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:2)
It varies with the gym. I used to go to a gym full of steroid abusers, which did fit your description. I now go to the gym at a local leisure center. The staff are helpful, the people using it aren't freaks and there are a lot more pretty girls there. It pays to shop around a bit.
If you don't enjoy the "LOL, look at teh n00b" experience you could get yourself a set of adjustable dumbells [fit-senior.com] and train at home for a while. You can learn about weight training and get in shape in the privacy of your own home. If
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:2)
Re:They should do this for all MMORGs (Score:1)
And wasting countless hours discussing games (or anything for that matter) on slashdot is more productive than actually playing the game?
This was actually really cool. (Score:5, Interesting)
As soon as I logged in, I went to Atlas Park (the hub/newbie zone of the game). I looked up and sure enough, hanging in the sky right above the giant statue of Atlas was a large ominous sawcer. Very Independance Day-esque. I flew up closer (I play a lvl 24 blaster with flight) to the alien ship, and noticed there were little green flicks and flashes coming down from parts the ship. The Ritki aliens were dropping to the surface.
I flew down and saw what I did not expect. Hundreds of heroes banded together to form a line of scrimmage, using unprecidented organization to fight off one or two aliens at a time. The aliens were all 'conning' purple to me (meaning they were tougher than me, I suspect they were around level 30 apiece), so some aliens took many heroes to take down.
The wave of heroes moved forward until we had resecured the capital building from the alien onslaught. We then huddled around Ms Liberty in a mass of flying, jumping primary colors, and defended against another wave of alien attackers.
I probably hit the screenshot button more than the shoot button during this event.
I'm running an Athlon 1700+ with a gig of ram. I have a GeForce4 Ti 4600 with 256 megs. It was slow and choppy during the real heavy parts (I was getting about a frame a second whenever someone did a 'mass heal' to a batch of 50 heroes), but still remained stable and playable. I was still able to put some hurt on the aliens.
It was a very entertaining event, a successful stress test on the server (and the clients), and it definately made me eager to start playing an official character on Sunday.
If you see Kid Gizmo in the mix, send me a tell!
Re:This was actually really cool. (Score:2, Interesting)
This was actually not really that cool. (Score:5, Interesting)
Heroes were getting obliterated by the dozen. On my Athlon 1900+ and my GeForce FX 5600 with 256MB I was getting 1 frame a second. Since I wasn't a long range blaster this made it impossible for me to actually engage in combat.
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.
Unless they work these lag issues out (I mean...it's just me, but if I was a citizen in the midst of an alien attack I couldn't possibly defend myself from, I'd probably stay the hell indoors, and not be all hustling and bustling outside. I certainly wouldn't be out robbing people.
To end it all, I was in Atlas Park as the big Rikti Spaceship loomed threateningly over City Hall, and then dramatically...disappearing.
I was up on that 20 story building before the others organized the mass "suicide" jump hoping to see some cool explosion or something, but no...poof.
The most entertaining moment of the evening was after it all ended people starting logging in and asking where all the aliens were.
Aside from that it was just a bunch of lag for me and the other close ranged attackers. I considered just logging out because I couldn't do anything, and then just decided to stick around to see if there was some cool finish to it all, but there wasn't even that.
It's been a pretty clean beta, with the exception of the last couple days where it's been hit by INSANE lag. I really like the game so far, but I'm being VERY cautious now.
Re:This was actually not really that cool. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:2)
It's been knocked down a peg after the few slip ups over the last few days, and my post was mainly to say, "Eh, the Rikti Invasion was actually fairly lame if you weren't ranged."
Re:This was actually not really that cool. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. (Score:4, Insightful)
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:This was actually not really that cool. (Score:2)
Re:This was actually not really that cool. (Score:1)
Re:This was actually not really that cool. (Score:1)
This is with 768MB ram, Radeon 9800 Pro and Barton 2600.
The only
Re:This was actually not really that cool. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This was actually not really that cool. (Score:2)
Maybe you were on a different server than I was. I could run up...and then the guy would be in a different place. I wasn't even getting movement animations for the Rikti. They would just be "dragged" from point A to point B.
Re:This was actually not really that cool. (Score:1)
Even when getting some severe 2-second latency, I was seeing them make with their full run and shoot animations uninterrupted. The exception being when I was very far away- In which case, they did seem to hop from place to place but while still performing their animations.
Rikti Invasion (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Rikti Invasion (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Rikti Invasion (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Rikti Invasion (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Rikti Invasion (Score:2)
Like these [mandrake.net]. It was really cool, especialyl when they were killing trainers and task force people.
This has to be said... (Score:3, Funny)
This just looks amazing! OMG! Who wouldn't want to be a Super Hero?!?
Soon? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Soon? (Score:1)
More from Gamespy... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/508/508603p1.html [gamespy.com]
Re:More from Gamespy... (Score:1)
another gallery (Score:4, Informative)
My favorite is this one [mandrake.net] which shows how big the ships were compared to, say, really tall buildings.
Great game, I'm going to enjoy playing it live, also.
Talos Island was the plece to be (Score:5, Interesting)
We routed the invaders time and again with fairly minimal losses.
A real-life person was controlling the commander. He had some special powers and was very difficult to bring down, but eventually we did.
I was level 20, but sidekicked up to 34 so I did my fair share of damage to the ungodly invaders. Took a slew of shots of my team (3 beauties plus little old me). Good time had by all. Much less laggy than similar events I participated in back in the early days of Asheron's Call.
I recommend COH to casual gamers who don't want to twist their real lives around to have fun playing a game. I was always able to play 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there and feel like I was making progress and having fun.
That was one of the best ideas I've heard of. (Score:4, Insightful)
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:That was one of the best ideas I've heard of. (Score:2)
Re:That was one of the best ideas I've heard of. (Score:1)
Fortunately that's a way off yet.
Auto Assault looks great though. That one I'd consider PvP in, as it practically begs for it (I can't remember Car Wars being anything BUT a PvP RPG).
Auto Assault appears to be to Car Wars as CoH is to Champions... hmmm AutoDuel Champions anyone?
Re:That was one of the best ideas I've heard of. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That was one of the best ideas I've heard of. (Score:1)
DAoC was notable in this regard too. Problem was RvR was pretty much all the end-game there was for the first year, before the PvE server was started, so they HAD to work on class balance.
One reason w
Re:That was one of the best ideas I've heard of. (Score:1)
On some servers and areas, we did just that. Others were neglected by the heroes and fell, while a few more were neglected by the developers and didn't get invaded at all. The alien ships eventually just vanished. No special effects, just deleted. It was a little anti-climactic.
The game just came out and an expansion soon? (Score:1)
City of Villians (Score:1)
"will allow players to take on the role of villain (Score:1)
Re:"will allow players to take on the role of vill (Score:1)
Kneeeeelll before Zod!
Re:Uhh a city of heroes and no one else? (Score:1)
Re:Uhh a city of heroes and no one else? (Score:1)
It was actually funny to witness them milling about normally amidst a raging battle between aliens and superheroes. So long as they didn't actually come within about three feet of an alien, they completely did not notice them, and thus didn't flee in panic.
There were more than enough aliens at a few points, though, to ensure that the "run like a little girl" zone around the NPCs usually got b