Champions Online GM journal: Where we've been

In b4 HURR DURR CHAMPEENS ONLINE SUX DERP.

I temped to make a "Champions Online is so boring even the NPC Nemesis seem bored"-joke but that's probably too much of a cheap shot.

Now it they reworked the powers to have better synergies across different sets that would freshen up the game considerably. Plus fixing outright broken (as in not useful) powers like Telekinesis throw object needs to be a priority.

I beta'd for CO, bought a lifetime sub, and genuinely like the game, but this bothered me:

"When we receive a significant number of reports stating that something is not working right, but the developers come back to us saying “Actually, that’s supposed to happen”, this usually means there is some sort of disconnect between the intended design and the community. So, for situations like that, we try and come up with suggestions to improve the way information is presented to the player in the game. This helps the players out, by providing better explanations, but it also helps us out, by reducing the number of tickets we have to respond to with 'Sorry, that’s not a bug.'"

Specifically:

"tickets we have to respond to"

More specifically:

"respond"


You respond to tickets? Screenshots or it didn't happen.

CO would be awesome as F2P +MT game, as sub+MT it is a mediocre offering at the moment. Also, its lack of roles and punitive retcon dynamic if you spec for grouping, makes teaming unnecessarily inconvenient, unlike COH where teaming is easy and painless, and respecs are easy to obtain (either through fun task forces or as veteran rewards).

Chew on that Cryptic,lol.

The problem is they are just adding more of the same, the few areas the game the was good at (well the one area really - customisation), are now slightly better but the many, many areas it was underperforming are every bit as poor as they were, that may be fine for those still playing but it hardly changes anything for those that weren't impressed before.

The tremendous customisation counts for absolutely zilch when presented with a world that responds in the same way no matter what, when the lone journey you are forced to take is identical no matter what, theres not even a vague illusion anything matters on any important level thanks to a complete lack of conviction in what is going on - no choice, no consequence, no involvement, no immersion, no fun, no point! Its as true today as it was in alpha when they actually had a valid excuse......now the explanation appears to be a profoundly clueless design.