City of Heroes Free(dom)!

Turbo164

New Member
So City of Heroes is free to play now. I played a bit back in college, will probably start playing again in the next few days. Wanted to know if anyone had any characters already and if so what server; free version only allows 2 total characters for the first month, more unlock as you play (or buy).
 
DCUO goes free tomorrow, not sure I will play CoH again, but I have a couple toons in their 20s and 1 in the 30s. I think liberty server if that is still around.
 
Oh man, that was my most favorite MMORPG ever! You are an evil man to tempt me so! But, I suppose I will have to check and see what servers my characters are on; Liberty and Freedom have a familiar ring to them. I know on the Villains side I actually got a dude up to the max lvl 50 while on the Heroes side I had too much ADD and kept making new characters; I think the highest was a lvl 37 tank or something. Who knows, maybe we can get a few people playing on the same server and beat down some baddies!
 
All my characters are on Virtue. I was impressed...they let me keep my epic archetype characters instead of having to pay for them.
 
DCUO goes free tomorrow, not sure I will play CoH again, but I have a couple toons in their 20s and 1 in the 30s. I think liberty server if that is still around.
How would you rate DCUO in relation to CoH or Champions? I enjoy the genre, but grinding is painful for me (especially given the time constraints of being a husband and father).

As for CoH, I have 2 lvl 18 toons on Defiant. (Sewer runs gain 2 levels each time - up to level 15 or so).
 
I have not played it yet. I have high mid levels in both CoH and CO so I am looking forward to see how it compares. I hear the combat system is quite different.
 
All my characters are on Virtue. I was impressed...they let me keep my epic archetype characters instead of having to pay for them.

That is really neat. That makes me want to look in on mine too. They don't happen to offer free server Xfer do they? Stinks that we all have toons on different servers.
 
Back in the days, character transfers were available for a fee. If the transfers are available without any cost, I'd be more than happy to move a character or two to join in. Could somebody check on that? If not, we could all just agree on a server and start up a new character. Levelling is not bad if you have a good group. :)
 
Back in the days, character transfers were available for a fee. If the transfers are available without any cost, I'd be more than happy to move a character or two to join in. Could somebody check on that? If not, we could all just agree on a server and start up a new character. Levelling is not bad if you have a good group. :)
I'm fairly positive there is a fee for transfers on free accounts. If I'm not mistaken, I believe once you have created a slot on a server it is locked to that server (also free account). So my two characters AND my two slots are locked on Defiant unless I want to pay to move them (which I do not). So I do not have any free slots to assign to a different server to start another toon.
 
I'm going to go ahead and start a char on Defiant, since we're more likely to catch up to him with new chars :) Might spend my other slot on...liberty, since it looks like 2 people have guys there?

Hoping Spines Scrappers are as fun as they were 5 years ago :D
 
It looks like my Heroes are in Pinnacle and my Villains are on Triumph. I'll plan to make a character on Defiant with you guys.
 
I have not played it yet. I have high mid levels in both CoH and CO so I am looking forward to see how it compares. I hear the combat system is quite different.
14GB. . .gasp.

It's going to take me 3 days to download this game. . .
 
How would you rate DCUO in relation to CoH or Champions? I enjoy the genre, but grinding is painful for me (especially given the time constraints of being a husband and father).

As for CoH, I have 2 lvl 18 toons on Defiant. (Sewer runs gain 2 levels each time - up to level 15 or so).

Below, in quote, is my mini review post I wrote on the DC Online beta back when. I imagine it's changed a decent amount since then but probably not enough to overcome it's significant flaws. Bottom line is although DC may be slightly better overall (graphics, open world cities, cameos, voice acting) Champion's character creator is by far superior, even the F2P version.

Both games are grinds though in CO I at least enjoyed having my character made the way I wanted it while I grind-ed. Other than super speed jumping, bus chucking and the occasional cameo I can't say I enjoyed much in DC. DC may or may not be a lot less of a grind than CO as I was playing DC with beta exp gains which may or may not have been jacked up. Regardless even after you hit level cap in DC all that was left was to grind the instances and pvp extreme amounts for gear.

Gerbil said:
Is DC online worthy to be among mmorpg Champions or is it a City of Zeros?

Gameplay:
Starting off you will build your character and chose your weapon and superpower. You'll be using your weapon attacks (fists, staff, guns, etc.) more than your superpowers as attacking generates energy to fuel powers. However while you can change your weapon late in the game you can't change your power so choose wisely as your power set determines your role in combat tank, healer or controller. Everyone gets dps as a starting class and access to your primary class at level 10 at which point you can switch between them any time outside of combat. The difference between DPS and your main class mode being more damage and squishy vs stronger superpowers and defense.

Actual combat revolves around using your weapon combos to build energy and then using your superpowers at the right time. As a Brawler I found little use for other than two weapon combos, the longest main one and the one ranged skill you can get. In fact, since you can get passives in other weapon trees that stack whether you are using that weapon or not, every extra unused weapon skill you take becomes a waste. This means choosing variety, to offset the boredom of using the same attack, makes you less powerful. It is worth noting you can redirect the Brawler's main combo to another enemy should the one you are attacking die before it completes. This I found both useful (due to the end of the combo doing more dps), fun and something that requires a tiny bit of skill rather than spam. Unfortunately energy power builds on combos so if you need power, as opposed to killing enemies, to say heal a group it's better to just spam your low level ranged attack over and over. Since your superpowers require energy built from weapon attacks superpowers are of course more powerful though the strongest powers work on a supercharge meter. Rather than energy building on combos these powers charge on defeating enemies and depending on which power you buy can be a lifesaving ability or a slot wasted. Which powers you take in a tree will create a lot of how you play the game as you can only have six equipped at a time. As such powers behave like weapon skills with any extra unused powers taking away from passive powers you could have bought. This lends itself to two options do you want to play the same way the whole game and have better stats or have lower stats and powers you can swap to when you get bored? Since many abilities serve the same purpose but perform it in a different manner I felt myself a bit punished for trying to add variety to my character's abilities.

Having played a healer to level 30 (and a tank character some) I felt healing in the game is a bit lackluster. Firstly you'll be watching bars a lot and don't expect to heal like a Warhammer melee warrior priest as you'll use up too many heals on yourself. As such ranged attacks seem better for healing and you'll have a few problems if your weapon skills are primarily melee based. I also had issues with other players blocking my distance attacks therefore depriving me of power. This left me with the feeling that ranged flying healers would probably do better than my primarily melee super speedster. You're also going to have to give up some single player/PVP power to be the best team healer as each player has a limited amount of power abilities they can purchase. Many heal powers will be fairly useless in single player something the fire tank's power tree did not suffer from. Still as a Brawler/Nature build I managed ok as an off-healer, only having a couple heals, and in single player pvp match ups I held my own.

The single player quest varieties are 'kill this many", "collect this many" type quests. There are no timed quests, delivery quests or anything that dynamically changes in the world. The game does have many varied settings and DC characters to encounter but the actual actions you perform are the same. Want to have to deliver a vaccine in time while attack helicopters spawn chasing you? It doesn't come anywhere close. Where is the urgency? Where is the spontaneity? Where are the moments I write my own legend DC? They will be adding some content but it's going to have to be major AND varied to escape the grind, I don't see that happening. Once you reach level 30 you are reduced to raid or pvp farming ad nauseum. There are a few types of pvp, alerts and raids which are polished but standard fair.

In addition why can't developers realize meaningful and varied player interactions are the core of re-playability? A game will never have enough content as human interactions can create so why not put effort fostering dynamic content that does that? What we do get in DC is a pvp server where heroes and villains are thrown together without context and a pvp arena where you can grind for armor to beat down newbies who haven't grinded. Grouping for harder enemies and raids were among the highlights of the game but, for the best gear, I had to farm the same instance so long I don't ever what to see the Batcave again XD (and this was with a beta bug that dramatically reduced the time I had too farm it). Please note if you play this game I recommend the pvp server, yes you can currently get overwhelmed by a level 30 camping but you get an element of danger not present on the pve server. On the pvp server I found myself actually have to be alert to my surroundings if I wanted to complete quests not just grind in a haze.

Graphics:
DC online excels in this area bringing the large cities of Metropolis and Gotham to life with many locations from all over the DC Universe. There is a little pop in but it's not bad on my moderate level computer. You've also got DC characters from the well known to the obscure and even a few hidden cameos to be found. Certainly DC did not scrimp in the detail department and the missions are good the first time if only to check out what happens and who or what you end up fighting. Add in seasoned and recognizable voice actors from the DC cartoons and you feel like you are in one at times. A few notable powers, super speed and the slightly useful super strength for more damaging item/bus chucking (who doesn't like a good bus throw), did make me feel superpowered though they are unfortunately the exceptions not the rule. Most powers were meh and not all the powers/weapon skills mix well either. Also DC's costume earning incentive does not work when I got my costume as close as the game would allow when I created him. Now every new piece of equipment is just a grind for more stats, not unlike leveling but less compelling (seriously DC more prongs does not make better looking armor). Also, unlike Champions, you don't get huge character control, you don't get size variance, facial hair is not separated from head hair and a multitude of tiny options are unavailable. Even the power sets seem inappropriate to what I want as I'm not an "elemental" type guy. Still the powers and customization options do their job well enough it just makes me long for the Champion's character creator. Of course this juxtaposes the areas in Champions which left you feeling like your were going down a corridor while the feeling of freedom that the cities in DC impart is a vast improvement. I think I had the most fun in DC online just super speeding up buildings to ramp jump off and over other skyscrapers. It's nice to finally have a game you can actually leap tall buildings in a single bound .

Moral Content:
As far as moral content most objections in the game come in the form of the magic/demon content. Since you have three possible mentors to choose from and one is magic based almost a third of the game's content will take you through the vast magic themed stories of DC comics. For the most part it stays true to it's completely non-sensical source material however a few missions had me wincing even if they didn't make sense. The worst I found was the one you must leave your soul in the care of the the demon Etrigan (he is a good demon though >.> ), turn into a zombie and infiltrate some areas sealed by evil to fight it. Of course this was on the "Hero" side I imagine the villain side would of course have you being evil and thus be worse. As far as language there were a couple of light cuss words in the game itself but that paled compared to other players which, being the internet, freely used whatever crude language they wished. There was no chat filter at the time of my testing and some players exploited that fact to it's fullest potential. The game certainly has it's share of sexy and reveling super outfits but I saw no sexual references nor can you have a nude character with um details.

Final Word:
DC online appears to have fallen into the atypical mmorpg syndrome. Sure all the mmo bells and whistles are there, raids, quests, pvp, it's pretty, etc. . Notables include the huge scale of Metropolis and Gotham and a couple powers help lend an epic feeling. Also if you are a DC comic fanboy it's fanservice and attention to DC detail will put you in 7th heaven. Maybe that's part of the problem though. Unlike fulfilling the game's motto "the next legend is you" it feels like it's a guided tour of the DC universe. Batman thanks you (since when does Batman thank people?), you hobnob with Superman and fight all the big baddies from Lex Luthor to Braniac but I never felt like I was a legend of my own. I was more like one of the many forgettable, and disposable, Justice League sidekicks being patted on the back by Superman "you did good farming those 20 demon horns, yes you did, who's a good superhero, you are, yes you are!" . There is no real nemesis to call your own or a story based framework to set up and propel pvp. Most of the time you'll be grinding through quests which, although rich in DC detail, are all to similar in tasks. It certainly will be fun for a couple months but strip away the super heroes and you are left with that typical mmorpg grind.

DC online is not a bad game. Overall it's probably the best superhero (action) mmorpg out today with all the features you've come to expect but nothing more and certainly nothing original. I'd recommend it if you are a super hero fan or more so specifically a DC comics fan. You'll think it's great it for a couple months then get bored.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for the review. From reading other comments posted around the web, it seems that preference between the three games (CoX, CO, DCUO) comes down to personal preference and play style. I'm going to give it a shot and see how I like it, but I calculate between 28-35 hours to download the 14GB game at my current speed (7 hours last night downloaded 4.2GB). Since I cannot download straight through to completion (my wife uses the computer as well and likes to be able to surf without pages taking >20 seconds to load) it will probably finish sometime on Friday. With my church's men's retreat this weekend, I don't expect to actually get into the game until next week sometime.

Alas, I still remember foolishly questioning, so many years ago, why anyone would ever need a gigabyte of hard drive space. . .
 
So far I am really enjoying DCUO, I am going to have to make multiple accounts or pony up $5 (to get premium status with 6 slots) because 2 char slots is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to few. Gerbils account sounds about right so far. This looks like a total blast for a couple months. Just enough to hold me off till SWTOR which will hold me off for GW2.
 
Last edited:
because 2 char slots is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to few.
I have actually found that more helpful than not in CoX and CO. When I actually paid for an account in CoH (for 2 whole months), many years ago, I created so many characters that none of them were over level 21 and most were under level 8 by the time I quit playing. I get spread so thin trying to experience every possibility that I end up experiencing none of the game. As it is, with 2 slots I still end up trying to level both characters (as evidenced by 2 level 18 toons in CoX and level 24/level 16 toons in CO) and usually give up way before I have reached end game content.

Of course, I think part of the issue is my preference for ice based characters and the common theme of ice not being a damage dealer (thus not a fast leveler in solo situations) in both CoX and CO.
 
I hope to get on the Defiant server this week. What do you guys have, Heroes or Villains? Let me know so I pick the right side.
 
I hope to get on the Defiant server this week. What do you guys have, Heroes or Villains? Let me know so I pick the right side.
Both of mine are heroes. I could always re-roll one of them to be a villain if you wanted to go that route.

I personally feel more like a minion (pawn of the arch-villains) when playing on the villain side.
 
Back
Top