Monday, July 27, 2009

AE has ruined CoX

AE (Architect Entertainment) is the ability for players to create their own missions in City of Heroes/Villains (CoX). As a result players have made relatively easy missions with great reward - i.e. easily grindable high level mobs.

And players are flocking to these missions. Well, veterans aren't or aren't admitting to it. Veterans are the players who have played a long time and accumulated a lot of badges. At least on the forums, they've taken to calling those who have leveled via AE as "AE babies".

Perhaps rightly so, they are saying AE has ruined the game because only AE is getting action now. I agree they should make the rest of the game as appealing as AE is. But they also say those who have leveled don't have a clue how to play.

I'm leveling mostly by AE myself. I leveled the old way when I played before and let me say I'm glad there is an option to level faster. So maybe I'm not the best example, because I did play the slower way before. But I have to admit there isn't much difference.

Veterans have said they will only team with other veterans. They are checking badges. I find it interesting that a game which is surviving but could benefit from new players, has old players so quick to shut others out. They are proud the game is surviving because of them, but it isn't thriving. That's the point they fail to see.

I agree leveling via AE doesn't expose you to the rest of the game. Also you don't learn things you should by normally leveling. But my argument is how stupid are these players that can't learn L2P after they've hit max level? I swear I've yet to see much difference in fighting level 2s vs level 50s as far as group mechanics. And they have something in the game now that allows you to go back and do old content anyway.

As I hinted to in my previous post, CoX isn't rocket science. You think WoW is easy? You haven't played CoX. There are complaints that players don't know how to reach X or Y. Is it that hard to tell them "go here, then here". When I join a team and there's been something new added do I really need to spend a year playing the game to understand I need to take this or that portal? Or can my teammate say, "you need to go through this way". Ta da! Now I know, and it didn't take me months of leveling to find out.

1 comments:

EVE Characters said...

This is a very interesting and comprehensive posting on Architect Entertainment and its effects on game.

About this blog

"I don't *need* to play. I can quit anytime I want!"

Search This Blog