Comments on: Champions Online: The Tragedy of First Impressions (A Lack of Review)

By: Pardoz

Pardoz — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:02:50 +0000

A beta test is a buggy, unfinished, pre-release version of a game intended to be tested and tweaked.

An open beta is a buggy, unfinished, release version of a game intended as a free version for critics and anybody else interested in checking out the game before it hits retail.

By: Zubon

Zubon — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:35:16 +0000

Hear that? A game is at steak, and you’re doing harm.

By: Acacian

Acacian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:23:15 +0000

People who write ‘reviews’ during a beta really cause more harm than good. This is not a free version of the game for critics. It is a buggy, unfinished, pre-release version intended to be tested and tweaked. Complaining about placeholder graphics, quests that won’t exist at release, and frankly parts of the game that will change drastically over the next few weeks is missing the point of a beta. Express your opinions on the beta forums, report the bugs you see, and stop clogging up beta sign-ups just so you can be the first to review a game. I’m not saying there aren’t any legitimate complaints, I’m just saying – welcome to beta testing. I’m hoping you are also expressing your opinions in the beta forums

By: Champions Online: Beta Impressions Collected « Bio Break

Champions Online: Beta Impressions Collected « Bio Break — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:47:29 +0000

[...] Kill Ten Rats [...]

By: IC

IC — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:35:00 +0000

Interesting perspective. I’ve been playing the closed beta for several months and the quality of the graphics, the quality of gameplay and the overall quality of experience has increased geometrically during that time.

Didn’t like the black outlines myself, so I turned them off. Had some trouble with the controls, so I filed bug reports – as Cryptic asked.

I respect your perspective here and I’ve known others who have shared them, but I think the CB period was meant to address all those problems you had.

I look forward to seeing your updated thoughts.

By: heartless_

heartless_ — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:02:51 +0000

Oh well, thats the MMOG market for ya.

By: Moondog548

Moondog548 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:07:55 +0000

Heh. As someone who only played the last couple weeks of CB and really had no initial interested in the game whatsoever, my experience was pretty much the exact opposite of Zub’s. I think not being a longtime CoX fan might be a reason.

I wasn’t impressed by a ton, and the software was definitely beta quality, but I was impressed none-the-less by several things. The combat even in the tutorial with just 2 skills and a couple standard moves was really interesting, at least against boss and mini-boss enemies where blocking, dodging, and resisting certain attacks are all done manually by the player and actually needed to be done.

Throw in WAR style public quests, W101 style zone instancing to keep populations in your gaming environment level, customization and graphics that are marginal upgrades from CoX and I’d say the result very much is “CoX but a little better”.

By: yep..

yep.. — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:44:04 +0000

graphics not good? but you did turn up the 3d graphic scaling in the options to get it from pixelated to clear, right?

By: Keen

Keen — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:29:37 +0000

The screenshots do the game waaaaay more justice than it deserves. The graphics are mediocre at best. Everything released on the news sites is all doctored and glossed up (nothing new, all publishers do it) and untrue to the actual game.

I’ve been testing for 4-5 months and did my best to play every test. I can’t stand the game and will be uninstalling it once I finish taking screenshots and videos… if I can ever get this patcher to work.

By: Ethic

Ethic — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:41:27 +0000

Most games people say the screenshots don’t do it justice. Somehow, the screenshots from this game look BETTER than seeing the game in action. I’m not sure how they pulled that off.