25 Nov, 2009

COH Servers -- The living and the dead...

Posted by Omnitron 09:50 | Permalink Permalink | Comments comments (0) | Trackback Trackbacks (0) | City of Heroes



One of the things I've done this month is log into a LOT of old characters.  Practically all my characters on Virtue and Freedom, which is easily over 40 toons.  Of course that got the new Vigilant badge on a lot of toons.  I found a few that had been in day-job areas for ages that got some decent rewards.  It was a lot of fun to see which groups were active and kicked inactive toons, and which ones went inactive and the entire roster hasn't been there for weeks or months, save for a few individuals.

But I also looked at some other servers.   Except for Justice, MOST were very sparsely populated.   Usually on Virtue or Freedom you can see several individuals -- perhaps a dozen or more , under Atlas.  Not so on many of the other servers.  You might see a few characters around Ms. Liberty and maybe a few others around City Hall.  It amazes me that these servers are still going with activity so low.  Getting on a team when no one is around is a problem, let alone a supergroup.   And if you don't do either, getting to the end game will be a problem.  Some scrapper builds could probably do it, maybe a few other types. But some blasters and defender builds would really have problems making it through 50 levels going primarily solo.  Of course the FUN of City, has always been the player population.  A good character concept that makes contact with a team with a good concept, leadership, etc., can change the flavor of the game, and make the character a completely different experience.

I'm still noticing new players coming into the game, but just not in any great numbers.  I hope that GOING ROGUE will change this, breathing new life into the game.   Until then, I'm a tad nervous.  Is two or three servers enough of a population to keep the game going?  How much is going on the other servers?   If you have some comments on that, I'd love to hear them. (centralnexus@gmail.com)



02 Nov, 2009

Halloween aftermath...

Posted by Omnitron 16:17 | Permalink Permalink | Comments comments (0) | Trackback Trackbacks (0) | City (General)



As the Halloween event draws to a close (maybe a day left for badges -- IF you hurry), I thought I'd post some quick thoughts.

Most of it was the same as last year -- open a door, get the treats, or face the assortment of oppents as tricks.   It was possible to hit several doors in a row, but if you got TRICKs, the entities followed you MUCH better than last year.  Still, there was many a time that someone would open a door JUST after I had faced a mob, before I had recovered, and left the mob for me to face.  The one character I focused on got the suite of event badges, including some of the new ones. 

The new ones were on the Banners -- this event put 4 banners, guarded by different opponents, that would slowly phase in.  Eventually they would be vulnerable.  You had a time limit to attack and eliminate the 4 banners, and then coordinate on the "greater mystic aspect" which would be a giant monster.  I faced Jurasik in Atlas Park on one, and Adamastor in King's Row on another.   IF you were on a team you got a badge for each banner, and one for the final GM.  The unique thing was they showed the range to the Giant monster, but not a map point.   A trickier way of locating your foe, that I kind of liked.  The only thing I didn't like was that other than the banners themselves, the oppenents were mostly recycled stuff seen before in CoH.  I would have liked to seen FRESH opponents.  Granted it was wild seeing some of them in the low zones, but still, in this day and age, even the Architect system would give us NEW foes to face.

I've not seen as many people using the costumes given by the event this year -- I think it is old hat for some. 

I will be glad when the sun shines again in Paragon City.  If for no other reason than it makes the costume contests better.