Demonstrating my typical sense for all things current, cutting edge and topical, while everyone else is off to <google>Warhammer Online</google>, for me, its back to City of Villains. It's a game I've played a fair bit before, and one of those old flames with whom I parted amicably. It did get a bit grindey, I must admit, but that was some time ago, and they've apparently smooth the mid-game level curve a bit since my last sojourn. I think much of the troubles of last time was me going at it in slightly the wrong frame of mind too.
You certainly can solo it, and while the missions strewn across the Rouge Isles may not quite be as fresh an innovative as <google>Public Quests</google>, they can be a fun and entertaining diversion of an evening. Taking the time to actually read the quest text does pay off, with suitably cheesy Comic Book Hijinks going off all over the place. The various enemy groups are sufficiently varied, there are a tonne of badges to be had, and although the tilesets could use a bit of work, in general, the game provides a very acceptable MMO experience.
Mind you, where this particular game does shine, is in getting the whole group thing spot on. We rambled about the sublime mechanics of it all a fair bit in the most recent podcast; anyone can group with anyone else, at any time, anywhere, which is not something many MMOs can boast. (Well, as long as their on the same side of the Atlantic anyway, but can't have everything I guess). But while the laudable <google>Open</google> nature of the basic <google>Group</google> dynamic is a wonderful thing on paper, its actually being there that does it for me.
The last few 'League of Evil' nights have been absolutely barmy. Typically, there's eight people in Team Evil, of all persuasions, and when they start rampaging, I have a hard time know what the hell is going on, in a good way. There's rampaging robots, and arcing electricity and bursts of fire and green healing energy and boiling darkness and howling blizzards and through it all, there's me trying to find a back that's alive long enough to stab. Absolute <google>Chaos</google>, and total <google>Destruction</google>, most of which has me giggling like a simpleton most of the way through. It all scales admirably, adapting to our large group sizes, and throwing dozens of the faceless troopers of <google>Order</google> at us as we make our deafening way through a number of bizzaro office blocks, which frankly should have collapsed long before we reach the second elevator, and strangely, I find myself, the Eternal Statistician, starting to let go and just roll with it all.
I went with a Stalker again, the same stalker in fact; Dark Melee/Dark Armour and a Dark Heritage granted to me by the powers of the Peanut Allergy (Don't ask), and for a while, I was stressing out (again) a great deal about my typically preconceived notions about what a Rouge DPS class should be doing and when, worrying about not pulling my weight, etc. CoX catches you like that, if you're a game hopper like me; none of the Archetypes are quite what you think.
After a fair bit of stressing at the futility of being the only stealth class in a gang of insanely indiscriminate AoE fireflingers and absolutely berserk AoE melee monsters, I eventually just thought, what the hell, and indeed, if you can't beat them, join them. There wasn't a huge amount of finesse, to be frank, but I stopped worrying and had a jolly good time anyway. The lesson of CoX, if there is one to be had at all, is probably one of Release...
Last week saw us start a rather ambitious go at the first Strike Force, (which you can read about in detail in the previous CoH category, sidebar). It went well enough, but is probably a mutli-session thing really, during which you can't leave the group, so to occupy myself, I'm alting, already. This time, its a Dominator, with Mind Control/Psiconic Assault, powers derived from the terrifying force of Indecision!
Yet again, I find myself caught off guard by the way they seem to have taken A Standard MMO Class Type, in this case the Enchanter, and gone absolutely overboard with it. Within about five levels, I seem to have gained enough powers, and such potent powers at that, to ensure that in a typical solo fight of my own level, the enemies never get a chance to actually attack me. Sleep, stun, hold, confuse...the poor buggers never know what's happening until its all over. Muah!
It seems a subtle class, so I'm interested to see how it'll function when the rest of the rather...blunt League of Evil turn up and start having at it, but the grouping mechanisms are so good, it would be rude not to use them as much as possible. I'm even thinking of taking 'Leadership' power pool picks, in a rather uncharacteristic 'team-player' move. Still, what self-respecting Evil Genius is without a vast array of eccentric henchmen?
Looking forward to the 'Architect' player content mission building things to come, and the Halloween Zombie Apocalypse events, and apparently, theres a whole load of time travel stuff I've not even found yet. Probably going to be a keeper for quite some time, I think.