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Why you shouldn't play

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 22 / 55
Date: October 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Why I had to quit playing City of Heroes.

Everyone, I think its time that the people are reminded as to the one and single thing PlayNC really wants with its online game, City of Heroes. Your regular monthly fee.

They care nothing about the players, the quality of their game, fixing bugs, or customer service. Things started to go wrong with their poorly planned an executed service pack 2. It was rushed into production with many bugs and stability problems. The servers would crash without any warning in the middle of timed missions, some entrances were unworkable, hasten was seriously bugged to the point where you couldn't even tell if a power was recharged or not. All of this seemed more or less trivial until I ran into a showstopper.

I started on a long door mission where you have to rescue 30 hostages. The problem is that once you get to the end of the 60-90 minute mission and attack some of the Circle of Thorn guys at the end, they "teleport" right into the middle of a rock. The problem with this is of course is you can no longer target them and kill the bad guys. What is worse, they can target and damage and even kill you. Hah! Well, so much for completing the mission and so much for actually finishing the story arc.

I promptly logged a tech support issue using the menu options and then starting shouting via Broadcast that I needed a GM every 10-15 minutes. After waiting over 90 minutes there in the dungeon with NO response of any kind from anyone, I relogged into the game. This of course moves you OUT of the door mission but I thought, hey it might fix the problem. I work my way back into the Circle of Thorns lair, only to be killed by a boss creature that was lurking inside of the rocks. Again I waited some time while shouting for a GM. No response.

The next day, I started in on the mission again thinking maybe it was just a fluke. Nope, same exact problem. I waited again for over one hour shouting for a GM to come and see what the problem is so it could be fixed. I didn't want this to happen to other people and I was highly annoyed that I could not complete my mission, my story arc and that I had accrued debt as the result of the boss creature killing me from INSIDE OF A ROCK with no way to fire back. A sad state of affairs.

You might ask what happened to the trouble ticket I logged by this point. The answer is nothing. Not a single response in game or through the support system. I added the following update to my ticket. Admittedly this was a heated update, but I was really annoyed by the prospect of paying for a monthly service only to be screwed over by game bugs:

[color:"green"]
Customer (S. Howard) 09/19/2004 10:26 PM
After waiting more than an hour for someone to respond and not being able to get the Fire Thorn Caster to move out of the ROCK, I disconnected and reconnected.
It placed me back outside and reset the entire mission. Then I ended up getting killed trying to get back to where the Fire Thorn Caster got stuck to see if it was worth trying to do the mission again.

Now I have debt.

I want a refund on this month's bill, OR to have my character compensated with enough XP to eliminate the debt accrued.

If you can not do either, I will cancel my account and be sure to let everyone know how poor the support is for CoH.

I'm seriously ticked off right now. I have better support on my FREE NeverWinter Night server then what you guys CHARGE monthly for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[/color]

Now see this update got their attention at last. Here is their official response:

[color:"green"]
Response (Andre) 09/20/2004 01:50 PM
Hello S.Howard,

We apologize, but we are unable to remove debt for any reason. We can certainly understand and empathize with your situation, but in fairness to all as all situations can not be verified, we are not removing debt at this time.

Thank you for contacting the COH Support Team. Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Regards,
GM Andre
[/color]

There you have it in black and white err or green. Even if their mistakes screw you over, they refuse to fix it. Too bad, so sad, better luck next time? I don't think so. The reason they could not verify anything is because THERE WAS NO GM ON THE GAME FOR THE HOURS AND HOURS THAT I SHOUTED ASKING FOR ASSISTANCE.

When a vendor sells you defective goods or services you only have two remedies open to you. Ask them to fix the damaged goods or poor services rendered, or you ask for a refund.

So, I asked for a refund:

[color:"green"]
Customer (S. Howard) 09/20/2004 05:00 PM
Fine. I want a refund on this month's bill. See my other pending issue as well.
If you can not refund this month or provide a credit for next month, I WILL cancel my account for good and I promise to post on every single board I can find how PlayNC treats its paying customers.
[/color]

Ah now it gets interesting. Here is their official response:

[color:"green"]
Response (PJ) 09/24/2004 10:11 AM
Mr Howard,

I am the Senior Billing Representative for NCsoft. Your issue was escalated to me due to the refund request.

Please note that in order to access the City of Heroes game servers you must agree to the City of Heroes User Agreement. Paragraph 5 (Service Fee) does state, "Your membership fees are payable in advance and are not refundable in whole or in part for any reason whatsoever..."

We apologize the frustration you experienced with this issue, however we will not be able to provide you with a refund for the issue you experienced in game.
[/color]

So, when you click on "Accept" for their license agreement every time you want to play you in effect agree to the fact they get your money, no matter WHAT. I guess even if the servers were down for days/weeks/months, that they get to keep your cash until you cancel your account. Tough break I guess.

Oh I should mention at this point a GM actually DID find me in game and offered to "Fix" my problem. Their final resolution? Simply toggle my mission so that it showed as completed successfully. They NEVER bothered to investigate the teleporting into rocks problem. So, as far as I know the problem still exists and other players will run into the same issue. Not much of a fix is it.

I argued with "PJ" the "Senior Billing Representative for NCsoft" A few more times but never got anywhere with him. His final official response was:

[color:"green"]
Response (PJ) 09/25/2004 08:36 AM
My Howard,

I apologize for the frustration you experienced, however there will be no credit to your game account for this issue.
[/color]

This left me with no choice really. So here I am telling you the reader the facts. Don't let it happen to you. Stay AWAY from City of Heroes, NCsoft, "PJ", and the rest of their gang. It's a racket. Trust me, you don't matter one hill of beans to any of them because there are lots of other players lining up to give them money for an inferior product, non existent quality assurance programs regarding their software, and shoddy customer service. They just want your cash.

I'm sad to see it end this way. I WAS having fun right up until service pack 2 and all of these issues. Oh well. Live and learn.

Good luck out there.

--Howard

stuipidest game ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 34
Date: November 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

the game sucked because you had to log on to the website and register to play the game for ten dollars a month.thats 120 dollars a year. and if you want to waste your money thats fine with me ,but don't say i did'nt warn you.

you have to pay extra to play

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 61
Date: June 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am really into comic books and all of that, so i thought City of Heros would be a good game. so because i was able to get somthing as a gift i picked this game. I told my mom all about it with great detale and much excitment. Then when i was setting it up. you first, have to create a user name and a password just to play the game. Fine, i could do that but the thing that botherd me the most is that to play the game even without going online and teaming up with other people you have to sign up and subcribe to the game. and the cheepest was signing up for $14 on your cridit card and them charging you. i did not think that it was worth it to play this game. i did not think that my parents who bought this game for me should have to do this. it is not fair. and worst of all it dose not say this in any of the reading that i have done on this game. i just found out today when i was setting it up on my computer.

ps. don't buy it you end up paying more then the 30 bucks it coasts to just buy the game

The Developers continually make your characters obsolete.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: January 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game over a year ago and had a blast for the first six months spending hundreds of hours playing. Then, the developers decided to 'improve' the game by making my two main characters virtually useless. Despite repeated complaints from a large portion of the subscribers, the Developers refused to remedy the situation or even provide alternatives. This is not the only instance of this happening either. Each new 'edition' of the game makes some poor player's character obsolete. In frustration a large number of CoH players have inactivated their accounts. I expect the same will continue with CoV and other games developed by this company. They turned what could have been a fabulous MMORF into a frustrating experience.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME......

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 12
Date: January 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Unless you are prepared to spend $150 for only one year of play on this ONLINE ONLY game do not purchase it. Also the installation time is balls long and to get the updates for the game (which is required for play) takes over four hours to download and continued to stall on me so I can not even use my one free month. So thanks for the info, Amazon, now I am out of thirty dollars and I feel like my time is completely wasted. Unless you are ready for a world of trouble DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!!!!!

Abysmal first release, do not buy.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 20
Date: May 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The best part about this game is the character creation. There are thousands of different combinations. I spent a good while constructing my first character, and was excited about the potential.

It took me several hours to log in. The account creation requires you to go to a website which takes your details and then supposedly sends you a registration code. This took a long time to arrive, and by the time it had my login process had expired and I had to start again. Which requires you to receive another registration code. Which again takes a long time to arrive.

Luckily I actually managed to get this done, and set about creating my character. Once into the game I was immediately struck by the horrible lag. My character would run ten paces, then immediately be teleported five back. Moving around inside locations where you are required to steer yourself through a door is a headache. Watching other characters disappear when you try to click on them is annoying.

I was disconnected from the server once, was told it was unavailable twice, and was kicked to desktop due to a runtime error twice, all in the space of two hours play.

After crashing to desktop because of the runtime error, you are then unable to log back in for a while because the game believes you are already logged in.

This is a revolting first release. Doubtless a patch may clear up some issues, but I played Everquest when it was first released and did not encounter this many problems in such a short time.

I will stick with it in an effort to get my money's worth, but the other reviews on Amazon have not been encouraging.

Big Rip-off! Beware!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 35
Date: June 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is one big RPG Rip-off, you buy the game for $49.99 (plus S&H) and when you get the game on your computer it says that you need a Credit Card or Game Time Subscription Card (which cost $29.99) just to start the game. It only has On-line player game and no single player game that you could play Off-line, so don't buy this game if you have no Credit Card and can't buy the Game Time Subscription Card, if you do however it will cost you a total of $79.98 to $193.39 (thats if you buy the 12 months subscription with a Credit Card).

Beware before you purchase!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 55
Date: May 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Recently purchased this game as a gift for my teenager. Make sure your system has the proper requirements before buying. I thought we had a good sound/video card and have been told that it needs to be upgraded. That and the $14.95 monthly subscription should be prominently labeled on the package and on this site!

When Heroes fall...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 24
Date: October 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was introduced to this game early on this year by an online friend. I had never purchased any games that required a monthly subscription because I felt that once I bought the game, it should be mine to play. However, I was quickly hooked on this "digital crack" and spent at least four to five hours a day during the week and 12 to 15 hours every Saturday and Sunday playing the game.

If you read the most recent reviews for this game (October 2005), you'll find that many subscribers are becoming all to unhappy with the unfortunate direction that this game is taking. Superheroes are supposed to be just that...super and a hero. With the upcoming major update, they are planning on taking out both the "super" and the "hero" part and making you just an average citizen with slightly more strength than the NPCs of the game.

When the Thing yells out, "It's clobbering time!" and 20 minions go flying backwards when he swings his fist, that's a superhero. When the Hulk says, "Hulk smash!" and he turns a parking lot into a junk yard, that's a superhero. When Superman gets shot at with a machine gun and the bullets bounce off of him, that's a superhero.

Unfortunately, you just won't be able to experience it in this game anymore. In this game, you get new powers as you level and also new additional slots to put in "enhancements" to those powers. One of the enhancements you can add to an offensive power is a damage enhancement. You can put up to six enhancements into one power and that's exactly what I did with my Blaster ArchType.

The lead on this project has decided that somehow this isn't the way he wants us, the consumer that forks out money for his paycheck every month, to play the game. Instead, he is going to implement a system called Enhancement Diversification that penalizes you for putting more than three types of the same enhancement into a power. His "vision" is that he wants you to mix it up, putting in other types of enhancements that isn't needed such as reducing endurance cost or enhancing accuracy, neither of which my Blaster ArchType needs. Now, instead of having a 200% bonus for damage caused by one of my offensive powers, the most I can hope to have is 110%.

While 200% may sound like quite a lot of enhancing, keep in mind that while I have this 200% enhancement, I still suffer from a lot of defeat at the hands of the villains at my level. To "toss a carrot", as the saying goes, he is also going to lower the endurance cost of a power and he's lowering the debt cap. Lowering the debt cap? That right there says more about this new system than anything else because you're now expected to become defeated on a more regular basis.

So after spending close to 800 hours playing this game, going blind reading up on how to build a great hero, and spending $15.00 a month, the entire format of the game is going to change. My hero is going to suffer more defeat, his damage output is going to be nowhere near the level you would find in a comic book, and generally gone to waste all because the lead developer of this game isn't happy with the way that we play it.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the consumer that should dictate to the manufacturer how they are going to make their product? If Ford should come out tomorrow and say that they are no longer going to make cupholders in any of their vehicles, most people would have no problem going to another manufacturer. If Krispy Kreme were to say that they were not going to put icing on their donuts anymore, a hungary consumer is going to look elsewhere for their sugar rush. If the lead developer of the "City of Heroes" is going to come out and say that my hero isn't going to be super anymore, I'm going to look elsewhere for my gaming fix...

...and I am.

I'm cancelling my account with NCSoft as soon as this new patch is updated on the live servers and that just happens to be when "City of Villains" is released.

Purchase this game if you like, perhaps to those people just now signing up may think that they can be a superhero in the game. To those of us that have been around a while, it's like watching your dog getting older and older, knowing that it's going to pass away some day. That day has finally come for me.

Rest in peace, my former heroes.

A Game Into Oblivion

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 13
Date: October 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Played this game for well over a year. The developers kept constantly hacking up the game with issues each one progressively worse. The last one was too much. Played Diablo II for 5 years this one did not make it to 2 years. Research your purchase on this one. There are many games out there that demand a commitment of time with little reward in the end. I did enjoy the game but I am leaving while I am still having fun. The next issue will kill that I know.

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