Champions Online beta!
 

I'll start off by simply saying: SWEET JAYZUS YES IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT!

Power sets are nice and varied, good crafting system going on though I can't say much since I just picked it up, gameplay is smooth and intuitive. Character creator? goodgodyes it is sexy.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a48...s/ohhhyeah.png
If you can think it then there's a very good chance you can make a damn good approximation of it. Hell, I spent a good two hours just fiddling with it late last night before settling on that getup.

The only thing (and a very minor thing) that I'd have to speak ill of right now is the lack of mouse sensitivity setting. Though that'll likely change before/at live.

Protip: Go to the desert. Canada is buggy as shit. The desert is nearly perfect.

That said, really liking the game. I'm now on a Samurai Schoolgirl known as Amaya. If you see me running about feel free to toss me a tell. We can even group up.

Yeah, I read through the bug reports list and the majority were indeed Canada.

My handle, or whatever you wanna call it, is @Draugr. Easier to coordinate that way since hero names aren't unique to an individual.

I can't get the damn patcher working.

But yes, it is awesome, and I think I'm going to go order a copy.

Mine's Krylo. I've yet to see another Amaya, though, so whatever. Least of all one who is dressed in a plaid skirt, white shirt, and tie with a katana (and two pistols from buying powers just now).

I felt adventurous (and rich) and bought a lifetime pass. But noo, I still can't play the beta. Got to buy the game as well. Wait, Fileplanet lets me download it. Hang on 2.3 gigabytes.

Late edit: So far it's been non-stop server down and no shards found. Is anyone else having this problem or is it some underhanded way of telling me to fork out and join the beta properly?

Further update: Still haven't made it past the news window. I have a "ticket with 1 permission pairs" but no "shards". It'd be interesting if I knew what one of those three things meant.

Super update: Got a beta key, now the server is up. That's a pretty CRYPTIC way of saying you don't have permission to play hurr.

I've been having some fun with this, though I won't be buying it since all the people I care to play with are sticking with WoW. Other people can likely better extoll its virtues, but I have a few complaints about it:

First, maybe it is just the way I've balanced my character, but healing sucks. Healing done isn't based on your superstats like your damage, but on Presence alone. It also does not help that everyone has built their characters for damage (because every mission I've had up to 26 has been soloable, due to Regeneration), so no one has +threat advantages to act as a tank, which means I end up tanking as a healer. Choosing who to heal is kind of annoying because things that need healing are big, and trying to target players manually ends up targeting the Big Hurty Thing. The target does automatically switch to a valid one, if you try to attack a friendly or heal an enemy (it will assist off the invalid target), but oftentimes that's not the one that needs healing currently.

Combat feels highly repetitive. Again, maybe it is my choice of powers and how I've built my character, but I'm starting to think Shadow Embrace is OP. In terms of DPS no other damage power I've tried compares. Shadow Blast might perform better if it weren't for its long charge up time, or if Embrace did not get stronger the longer you channeled it. I also picked up the advantage for Shadow Embrace which has a chance to throw up or pull forward, and this works pretty frequently even on Cosmic level mobs (Henchmen - Villain - Master Villain - Super Villain - Legendary - Cosmic), interrupting them and basically stunning them with no resistance checks. It annoys the hell out of melee, but it's either they have to run around or people get hit for 90% of their health, which usually kills them because they were low from something else. I'm sure that will be adjusted eventually, probably nerfed to useless at some point. In any case, Shadow Embrace is all I ever use; that, and Shadow Bolt, my energy builder.

There are 'builds' which allow you to select roles (Balanced, Offense, Defense, Support). Probably as a result of everyone building for damage, choosing a role other than Balanced (or possibly Defense) results in a quick death, because it halves your health, and probably has effects on your defenses as well. In a Support role you gain higher energy regen and your healing (and probably other group buffs) are improved, but have minimal defenses. I'm not sure the effects of the Offense role besides being able to use certain passives and the reduced health, but I assume it reduces threat generation and increases damage passively as well.

http://www.nuklearforums.com/showth...=35411&page=15

Threads should be merged.

Eh, the old thread is 15 pages long. I'm surprised it wasn't locked by now.

Likely it will be and this one will continue it.

Yarr, I figured I'd just start a new thread instead of necroin' one that dropped off the front page from lack of input.

To the topic at hand: Been forcin myself to not play it constantly so as to maintain excitement for the early release launch. So far I'm very impressed with how Cryptic is handling all of this. Lots of forum interaction, they're quick to stomp out bugs, so on so on. I have nothing but good feelings for CO.
'cept for the lack of a radiationy oriented power set >.>