[treelo]

Anyone else had a look at this yet? It's essentially the vanilla multiplayer mode with a ton of new stuff added, packaged neatly with the original CoH campaign for the awesome price of: nothing! I'm fairly impressed with the additions they've made; unit upgrades, ability upgrades, and heroic units with persistent EXP that gain extra bonuses each time they level.

Worth checking out if you're a fan, or have been living under a rock for the past few years and never played the campaign mode.

[octoberasian]

I've heard of CoH Online before but didn't get much info out of it. Now that you mentioned it again, I'll take a look at it. I've been a big fan of the offline game having gotten all the expansion packs and played the multiplayer many times.

[treelo]

To be honest, I'm fairly mystified as to why they didn't simply take a little longer to add upgrades and the like to the Brits/PE and package the whole thing as an expansion. I'd have assumed there would be a lot more money in that than there is in this. Some new maps would have been a bonus too.

The command ability upgrades are amazing. My rather measly rocket strike is now a veritable rain of fire that repeats itself once a minute for three minutes. Stealthed stormtroopers moving at normal speed with increased health and decreased upgrade costs. Flares that increase accuracy. I still have three slots left to unlock as well.

Standard unit upgrades come in all shapes and sizes; increased health, sight radius, accuracy, weapon damage; additional armour penetration and armoured skirts by default for tanks to name but a few. You can equip up to 9 of these at a time, and have inventory space for 120.

Heroic units are hit and miss. My pioneers are somehow still level 1, despite making an appearance in every battle. Snipers, MG teams, and mortars blast through levels. Standard infantry are... standard. I did just pick up an "epic" (yes, it's purple) unit of Grenadiers with some outrageous bonuses to unlock.

Anyone who has played it before will be able to jump straight in, the gameplay has changed little despite these improvements. You'll still encounter the same dozy chumps who think spamming BARs is an instant win, though the loss of extra units from OF/ToV has limited this somewhat. If you've played it online, you'll instantly recognise the poorly disguised matchmaking system torn straight CoH. Hopefully they'll see sense and add the extra factions at some point, it's in the final stages of open beta so I doubt that'll happen for quite a while yet.

I'm having a blast with it though, it's certainly a refreshing change from having every other match being against a T-17 spamming bastard. That's right, I play as the Axis, don't look so surprised.

[octoberasian]

Not surprised you're playing Axis, they do have pretty damn good units. ^^

I personally play the British though when in Multiplayer, using either Canadian Artillery or Royal Engineers. Sometimes I'll play German Panzer Elite using solely Tank Destroyer doctrine. Rarely do I play the Allies, but when I do I usually use Armor Company and less often, Airborne Company.

But, when I get back to the States, I'll give CoH Online Beta a try.