[City of Villains] The biggest problem I had settling in to City of Heroes (and now City of Villains) is that I have a hard time settling on a concept for a player I can really get wrapped up in. This has lead to many characters, but none I really play often.
This morning I came up with a concept for a villain and it really took hold. I already had made a character with the name I wanted so I knew that I would be able to use that name by deleting the character first.
I had some time before work so I logged in and deleted the name holder. Then I started creating my new character. It spent a little extra time getting the costume just right. And finally I was ready.
I entered in the name and then I get the message, server disconnected. WTF?
I head to the game’s website and check the server status. All are down. I check the forums, nothing about downtime. I check the login again and no mention of downtime.
So I hit the support section and do a search for “downtime”. And there it is; servers are offline EVERY DAY from 8am to 10am CST. OK, this is kind of important information. Why is this not plastered all over the login screen? So, now I am at work and hoping nobody grabs my name.
– Ethic
Glad you found a character concept to connect with. I agree that’s one of the biggest issues in any game, really. I suppose that’s one of the reasons I’m not fitting into Eve that well (thus far). Eve seems to be about “me”, but not so much my “character.” I mean, I’m associating with players in the game whose characters would force me into slavery if they could.
I did have a lot of fun with CoH for the first few months. It’s great fun making a character and getting some of the neater travel powers. I hope for your sake that CoV is somewhat more diverse and can offer you a longer, more satisfying play. (What is this, a chewing gum commercial?). I suppose it’s okay for me now to say that I was a CoV beta tester. Honestly, I didn’t get very far. It was basically a slight twist on CoH, with pretty much the same available characters (and a few addons). I immediately got turned off when I hit the “random” button for character costume about 100 times, and really didn’t see much that wasn’t already available to CoH characters.
I know, everyone has their own point of view when it comes to these games, so I’m not dissing the game. The server downtime seems a lot like Eve’s. Annoying, but you can live with it. You’re absolutely right, though, about the necessity of it being advertised. If you live in a time zone where that time falls right in the middle of your available play time, that could make or break your decision whether to buy the game.
This reminds me of the issue of honest disclosure. It’s something Terra Nova’s blog has been discussing, concerning Blizzard’s trojan “cheatware” (rootkit?). If you haven’t already, I strongly suggest you take a peek to see what Bliz can and does access on your computer while you play. This is something that Bliz didn’t reveal on its own, and there is a great demand from the community that Bliz should have at least let us know it was spying on us and what info it has access to.
[I know you quit WoW, but who knows, maybe CoV’s doing the same thing?]
I’ve been following the Blizz issue and even though off topic I’ll say something about it. I am happy they are doing what they are doing, but they should be very upfront and clear about it. I’m sure they justified hiding it somewhat by figuring it would be easier to catch cheaters if they did not know about it.
Regardless, my gaming machine is just that – a gaming machine. There is nothing on there they could snoop that would bother me. I don’t cheat and I don’t have any vital info on that machine.
It is an interesting development and I’ll be sure to keep following it.
Regarding downtime, I could probably get an hour of CoV in every morning before work if I wanted, but their downtime will keep me from doing so. That is 5 hours a week if I wanted to that I can’t play. Considering I normally play 10 hours a week, it would be a significant portion of my game time.
Downtime affects someone somewhere, so I am not really that upset. I just wish it was announced better so I didn’t have to put my character’s name at risk today.
Want me to grab the name? E-mail me and I can be a squatter for you.
Appreciate the offer, but I’ll be heading home early anyway today so it should be fine. It’s not really that likely to be taken, but I have thought up a few alternatives that are good just in case.
“servers are offline EVERY DAY from 8am to 10am CST. ”
You think that’s bad, AFAIK EQ2 has scheduled downtime in Australia for about 1-2hours, at 9pm. Apparantly there is no particular server that operates on a different schedule. I hope they don’t wonder why are not going so well in Australia.