Having never played any other MMOs, I can't comment on how CoX compares to them. I will, however, say that there was a time when I would have sworn up and down that I'd never shell out regularly for a game when software should be bought once, dammit... and that CoX has now been my number two timewaster (after fanfic) for over a year, now, and that I've been considering looking into FF XI recently.
Re: other questions...
There is a system whereby an active player can give a friend a free month to try the game out, but I'm not really sure how it works. Somebody else here likely knows.
Different supergroups have different activity policies. The Legendary basically asks that you play in supergroup mode whenever you're on that character up until level 35, and show up more often than twice a year. I've heard of others that require daily prestige contributions.
Play sessions can run anywhere from five minutes for soloing a single mission to five hours or more for some of the task forces.
Different archetypes require different amounts of activity and attention in general, and even within them there will be variations between powersets... which can be further tuned by which powers you pick and how you enhance them. I would be deeply shocked if you couldn't find at least one to suit your taste.
Targeting can be done via either mouse-click or key-triggered cycling, and, while I personally have found that the system is not-so-rarely frustrating, I've never heard anyone else complain. Once you have a target, you can use a combination of number, Alt, and Ctrl keys to trigger a single power (well, sort of, but that's the sense of it and the details of the other things you can do are, 1, arcane, 2, not what you asked about, and 3, easy to ignore if you want to) and cue up another once it's started to activate. The developers are very against any more automation than that, and which powers to use at what time is entirely up to you. Some powers are auto-hit; most roll dice for a basic fifty-fifty chance to hit. Some AOE powers can be aimed with a mouse cursor, but mostly the game doesn't allow any equivalent of a FPS's mouse crosshair.
Ja, -n
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"Reseeestunce ees fiutil. Yoo weeel bee Useemooletud. Borg Borg Borg."
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Re: other questions...
There is a system whereby an active player can give a friend a free month to try the game out, but I'm not really sure how it works. Somebody else here likely knows.
Different supergroups have different activity policies. The Legendary basically asks that you play in supergroup mode whenever you're on that character up until level 35, and show up more often than twice a year. I've heard of others that require daily prestige contributions.
Play sessions can run anywhere from five minutes for soloing a single mission to five hours or more for some of the task forces.
Different archetypes require different amounts of activity and attention in general, and even within them there will be variations between powersets... which can be further tuned by which powers you pick and how you enhance them. I would be deeply shocked if you couldn't find at least one to suit your taste.
Targeting can be done via either mouse-click or key-triggered cycling, and, while I personally have found that the system is not-so-rarely frustrating, I've never heard anyone else complain. Once you have a target, you can use a combination of number, Alt, and Ctrl keys to trigger a single power (well, sort of, but that's the sense of it and the details of the other things you can do are, 1, arcane, 2, not what you asked about, and 3, easy to ignore if you want to) and cue up another once it's started to activate. The developers are very against any more automation than that, and which powers to use at what time is entirely up to you. Some powers are auto-hit; most roll dice for a basic fifty-fifty chance to hit. Some AOE powers can be aimed with a mouse cursor, but mostly the game doesn't allow any equivalent of a FPS's mouse crosshair.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Reseeestunce ees fiutil. Yoo weeel bee Useemooletud. Borg Borg Borg."
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."