It’s been a while since I’ve sat down in front of this imaginary fireplace and shot the breeze with you, my imaginary audience, over Champions Online. That’s kind of odd, dontcha think, considering that the game comes out in little over a month? Shouldn’t we be in hyper-drive right now, drinking in endless quantities of Champions articles and spending every single moment daydreaming about the experience?
Perhaps, but that’s just not how it is. Don’t get me wrong — still very excited about Champions here. I’m pre-ordering from Amazon in a couple days when I get my next paycheck, and when I do spend time thinking about it, there’s nothing but latent enthusiasm about it all. I think that I’ve long since come to the conclusion that I know I’m going to like and play this game, a lot, and once I reached that point, I pretty much stopped following the hype train until it is time to get on board the real thing. Plus, DDO has certainly done an admirable job occupying my time, and I find TOR far more fun to speculate about. I want Champions to pleasantly surprise me, so I’ve artifically kept my expectations from raising above the “pleased as punch” level that I obtained from the beta.
I also don’t think that Cryptic really is over-hyping this at all. They’re certainly pumping out the interviews and clips and whatnot, but it’s nothing on par with what I experienced in WAR. Some folks have decided that CO is not for them, but the general feeling I get from the community is largely the same as me — they’re happy about it coming, pretty sure they’re going to subscribe, and willing to have their expectations exceeded. But Champions certainly does have a lot to prove, especially as the spiritual successor to Cryptic’s own City of Heroes. It can’t be “more of the same”, even if it’s solid, polished more of the same. It has to be better, different and at least nudging the genre forward a bit.
I’ve been contemplating what types of superheroes I’m going to build. Power Armor looks shiny and fun, although it certainly seems like the favored kid right now and will probably be overused. I’d love to make an oddball of a sorcery/supernatural magician-type-guy, like a Van Helsing mixed with Dr. Strange. A straight-up gun-happy avenger would be fun, so munitions is probably a lock.
A few articles have caught my eye lately. The first is the recent announcement that everyone who’s signed up with the forums will receive an in-game action figure pet that is “prone to dance”, and as far as the picture insinuates, looks a lot like your own character. I think Champions is going to fill my “fluff” need quite admirably.
TTH has a revealing interview with the Champions devs concerning two major pieces of their mid- and end-game: the Nemesis system and the Omega system. These are solid, if somewhat underwhelming in the case of the Omega system, answers to the end-game issue. In the Nemesis system, players will be able to use their own creativity to whip up an endless stream of supervillains to fight; as for Omega, it replaces static end game dungeons with a daily rotation of super-duper missions. I don’t think the Omega system is anything revolutionary — if anything, it’s a blending of daily quests and alternate currency that has proven successful in World of Warcraft.
Finally, no pre-launch sequence would be complete without whetting fan appetite for the future, and in a brief piece on Champions Online Daily News, Randy Mosiondz states that they have a full year of content planned post-launch, including a level cap raise, new zones, new powers, new PvP challenges — all at the rate of a major content pack every four months. Good stuff, but expected, so that’s that.
As August progresses, I’m going to be talking with my friends and sussing out the guild situation, so here’s hoping Champions doesn’t have in store any major WAR/AoC-level disappointments, but will be… ahem… up, up and away!
Oh, and congrats Cryptic:
“Champions Online is the #1 selling PC game over at Gamestop! Thanks a ton guys!”
Great write-up! Your post reassures me that CO will be more than a CoH graphics overhaul (which some people are saying). I liked your comment about not falling victim to your own hype. Hype is arguably the largest cause of disappointment in MMOs. I fall victim to thinking “this game will be the next game I’ll play for years on end! it has all these qualities, so it will be awesome!” Instead, the game doesn’t play it quite how I perceived… or I’m disappointed because I expected more surprises. Great post though – I can’t wait to play it! Hopefully it will be more fun (to me) than Aion. I wouldn’t even consider Aion, but I’m so burnt out on WAR and WoW… don’t get me started on AoC. CO looks like something I could really get into though. Thanks again!
I already heard bad things from beta testers, I wonder if someone has a second opinion on this from a beta tester.
I think for any game, you always hear bad things from beta testers. You also hear good stuff too, so it’s important to get an overall picture and balance your analysis with the fact that beta testers have spent a lot of time playing buggy and incomplete versions of the game, and their view of it sometimes becomes tainted for it.
I like the game from my own experience in the beta, and more and more I hear people who have been playing the recent builds be pretty excited for it. So I guess it depends on who you trust and whose taste in games is most similar to your own.
Meh. Just can’t get excited about this one. The twitchier play style doesn’t appeal to me, the graphic style earns points for originality but just looks ugly, and the free-for-all powers is going to result in a server full of FOTM clones with no thematic cohesion.
Plus consider the implications for nerf outrage – in most games if a power needs toning down only the players of that class get to scream about it. The free availability of power mixes means that a vastly large number of people will cherry-pick the overpowered abilities, making the whining that much more dramatic when they get fixed.
Yay a new post on Champions !!!
I think you sum it up pretty well, I’ll be entering the beta this saturday and I really am like a coiled spring. Its not that my expectation level is high, im just ready for a fresh game and a fresh challenge. The fact I was a massive comic book geek in my younger years is a bonus and Im feeling a burnout from fantasy like WoW and WAR so fingers crossed. As long as it isnt ‘CoH 2′ then I will be happy.
As for hearing bad things from beta testers ….. its beta therefore as syp states is very buggy and incomplete so of course you will hear bad things.
Hrm, just saw an announcement over on CoH. They’re basically giving benefits to players who keep their account active between Aug 15 and Nov 15, including badges and early access for the Going Rogue beta.
An interesting move to be sure – rather obviously driven by Champions, but it could encourage people to keep both accounts going, and make it even easier to jump back when the inevitable “Ooh, new shiny!” wears off, or the servers are crashing on day one.
I’m not sure I like the move – it feels a little desperate, honestly – but I think they deserve credit for acknowledging the impact Champions may have for them and trying to do something about it.
At least they didn’t offer people time with booth babes
I believe that you also have to sign up for the newsletter as well, which will not be sent until you put a check mark next to it in your settings. (At least that is what I assume when they say “receiving news.”) May want to check it just in case.
Anyway, I wish I could avoid following the hype, but I just keep getting sucked in on games I am looking forward to.
Buhalin, I think the ability of people to swap powers would make the nerf crying much less intense. After all, everyone can move on immediately, whereas if you feel like your class is gimped in WoW you have to either deal with it or mothball hundreds of hours of work.
But also, who gives a shit? At this point its become pretty obvious that you can safely ignore the whiners; the internet amplification effect makes it seem like they matter, but they really don’t.
FYI
GameStop and Best Buy are the only two retailers to also offer entry into the Early Start Program which gives customers “a few days headstart in the game before its official launch on September 1st.” So if you feel the need to get on the live servers ASAP then you should consider buying from one of them.
I finally pre-ordered from Gamestop. I decided that with my limited play time that I would prefer to get a boost at the beginning and have a downloadable client (beta + headstart) than a few accoutrement that would be useless later. And I get bug wings, so cool!
The hype machine hasn’t really hit me on Champions, but the systems they’re talking about (single world and good PvP) have sold a game. I just really hope it comes through as being as great as it sounds. But I’ve heard nothing about it through closed beta, so I’m pretty stoked to try it myself.
Great write up, syp. After playing DCUO I’m really hoping CO turns out to be a solid superhero mmo.
I am sure it will do pretty good. It does not have the good word of mouth that Aion has but it will do good none the less. I tried it and it was not for me, but it has its good points. Hope you have fun Syp!
“After all, everyone can move on immediately, whereas if you feel like your class is gimped in WoW you have to either deal with it or mothball hundreds of hours of work.”
Probably true, but this isn’t necessarily a plus for me. I really like the thematic cohesion that CoH enforces. I fully expect that Champions will be filled with invulnerable fire blasters (because Fire does the most damage) wearing jet boots to fly (because it’s the faster than the base fly) while using magic to heal themselves (faster casting time than the gadget heals) and occasionally pulling out a freeze pistol (because it’s got the largest AOE immobilize) when they need to escape. Constant character respec as people chase the “good” powers will just make that worse, plus ending up with all of the above on a character named ‘High Voltage’ (because he started with electricity, but it sucked).
The MMO community simply doesn’t care about the worlds they create. It’s entirely up to the devs to handle and enforce that. Feeling like I’m in a coherent world is hard enough with the few restrictions are in place. I fully expect Champions to feel more like a carnival sideshow than a superheroic environment.
“my imaginary audience”
I have suspected for some time that I was not real. I do appreciate the clarification! =)
In all seriousness though, I’ve been keeping Champions in my pocket. I fully intend to play it and enjoy it! I’m just trying not to get overly excited.
Champions is a game that I really want to be excited about, but haven’t been able to. I think that’s what lead to my debacle over soloing the game. I want to get news and get interested, but I’m not seeing anyone else excited either.
“The free availability of power mixes means that a vastly large number of people will cherry-pick the overpowered abilities, making the whining that much more dramatic when they get fixed.”-Buhallin
I don’t think that’s even possible. You can’t just pick the most powerful abilities, you have to already have some powers in that framework, or ALOT of powers in other frameworks.
“I fully expect that Champions will be filled with invulnerable fire blasters (because Fire does the most damage) wearing jet boots to fly (because it’s the faster than the base fly) while using magic to heal themselves (faster casting time than the gadget heals) and occasionally pulling out a freeze pistol (because it’s got the largest AOE immobilize) when they need to escape.”
So what if they wear jet boots? You can just knock them out of the sky in one move. And the kind of people you’re talking about will probably be stupid enough to misuse jet boots and knock themselves out of the sky. They can’t use magic to heal themselves while dealing out crazy fire damage, they would run out of energy in seconds.
“I really like the thematic cohesion that CoH enforces.I fully expect Champions to feel more like a carnival sideshow than a superheroic environment.”
Really? Cause I sure don’t. I’m playing CoX right now (wanted to play it one more time to try out the new content before I switch to CO) and I am still frustrated that my Technology blaster with yellow and black armor is forced to use blue ranged energy attacks and red melee energy attacks. How thematic is that? Why does my claws character have moves like “Focus” and “Shockwave”?
What you forget is that players can choose the colors of their powers. So yes, a bunch of characters shooting orange fire, yellow electricity and blue ice, it would be a freakshow. However, if all of those powers are the same color and reflect the look of the character using the powers, it won’t seem crazy at all. Paragon Studios have to add the power spectrum simply to make a SINGLE powerset, like energy projection, match up with more than ONE character look.
You’re also talking about a five-year-old game. There were limitations on what they could do, and they made some decisions which proved inflexible. They’re also doing their best to fix that, and I16 does so (finally).
But it’s not about the colors for me, it’s about the abilities – your energy blaster was still an energy blaster, and you didn’t mix in electricity and fire and ice all together. Gold electricity and gold fire and gold ice is still a complete mishmash of abilities which really have no thematic tie, whether they’re all the same color or not.
In Champions (the real Champions, not this CoH sequel that stole the name) you purchased effects, not powers. A 5d6 Energy Blast was a 5d6 Energy Blast whether you called it fire or ice or electricity or a gun or radiation. Thematic cohesion was simple. CO really isn’t Champions – it’s the CoH system letting you choose from any power you want.
We’ll see what happens, of course, but I’ll be VERY surprised if most characters show any cohesion at all. MMO players have shown themselves quite willing to pursue character optimization at the expense of everything else.
Syp, any comment from the kinds of characters you saw in the beta? Did they tend to stick to a theme, or cherry pick the best powers they could get regardless of the source set?
Im waiting for the open beta so I can try and help find bugs and try out the game for myself at the same time. I will play it until they close open beta then decide if I want to preorder with amazon to get the cool hat. (always wanted a jester character) If I help find some bugs but don’t like the game then cool I helped some people. If I don’t find any bugs but like the game, cool I have a new game. Both is preferable but hey.
People will always min max, they do it in CoX as well, but you will almost certainly have a large core group that has a theme and probably a decent section of that population who RP their characters (meaning respecs are less like for them). Try explaining that in RP.
“Gold electricity and gold fire and gold ice is still a complete mishmash of abilities which really have no thematic tie, whether they’re all the same color or not.”
And elementalist. A mechanized hero equipped with a variety of weapons. A hero who can alter their surrounding temperature to either extreme. There are hundreds of character concepts that could use the aforementioned powers. Don’t tell me you’re so uncreative or unimaginitive to come up with some.
People from Cryptic and people from Hero Games have been friends for years now, nobody stole anything from anybody.
In CoX, the whole setting of the game consists of a few buildings rearranged in different ways. There are only 4 travel powers. It has very little action. Every character has the same exact posture. From what I’ve heard, PvP is weak. Even if it isn’t, I’m sure it doesn’t have as many modes as CO will have. The only similarity I can see between the two is that they both involve superheroes.
“We’ll see what happens, of course, but I’ll be VERY surprised if most characters show any cohesion at all. MMO players have shown themselves quite willing to pursue character optimization at the expense of everything else.”
That’s where RP servers come in. Although I’m not sure if that will be in the game, it certainly belongs in a game based off of a PnP RPG.
“Did they tend to stick to a theme, or cherry pick the best powers they could get regardless of the source set?”
Like I said before, the kind of “best powers” you’re talking about are probably in the higher tiers of he frameworks. Therefore, the kind of people who have a little bit of everything would either be denied access to the stronger power due to having none or very few weaker powers in that ability’s framework or only be able to select that power at the last levels of the game, when they have enough powers from any other framework.
For example, if you wanted the strongest Ranged Targeted AoE ability in the Fire framework, you would need at least 5 other fire powers, or 8 other powers from other frameworks. If you go the latter route, all those powers must be non energy- building. Thing about it, if you had 8 non-energy building powers and one super strong power, you would still suck because you would run out of energy in a couple of moves. Champions Online is forcing people to follow some sort of guideline for their character, they’re just doing it very subtly.
Hah! I was just about to request a new Champions article.
I’ve known for awhile that I’ll be digging into this game, so I’m holding back on the information train. Odd how that works, when what’s likely to be good is less likely to be speculated about = less hype.
Still, I’m curious about a few things and it’s just a month away now…
I haven’t really been following anything on Champions, but from the small tidbits I’ve see there was something at the heart of superheroes I thought was missing – their mild-mannered everyday personas.
I think it would have been pretty cool if there was some sort of game mechanic where your alter ego could be discovered if you weren’t careful, and there were things to do as your alter ego in the game that where slightly more mundane but still fun. When your Nemesis shows up, just run over to that phonebooth and change into your super hero costume and start kicking some butt.
Most importantly, your mild-mannered alter ego probably has loved ones and friends you need to protect from your enemies… that would make for great quests that I’d actually want to do because my character would have some personal investment in it.
Anyways, again, I haven’t read much on CO or any other superhero MMOs out there, so if any features like this already exist… well, then I’m talking out my @ss and I apologize. But I think that would be a pretty fun feature that could really add a great spin to an online superhero game.
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“There are hundreds of character concepts that could use the aforementioned powers. Don’t tell me you’re so uncreative or unimaginitive to come up with some.”
Oh, I certainly can. But they’re somewhat limited, and I can pretty much guarantee that the vast majority of players WON’T have done so – most players can’t even be bothered with a simple character history, and I know very well that for every “general elementalist” out there there are a hundred who just picked the optimal build. My brain can only put in so much time making excuses for the silliness around me.
“People from Cryptic and people from Hero Games have been friends for years now, nobody stole anything from anybody.”
Then Hero Games gave their child over for the slaughter willingly. I didn’t mean they literally stole/cheated it, but the resultant game has pretty much nothing to do with the Champions/Hero system. Champions Online is pretty much the exact OPPOSITE of what Champions is, as a system. The strength of Champions was always in its system, not in its setting. By taking the latter while ditching the former it’s largely unrecognizable.
“In CoX, the whole setting of the game consists of a few buildings rearranged in different ways. There are only 4 travel powers. It has very little action. Every character has the same exact posture. From what I’ve heard, PvP is weak. Even if it isn’t, I’m sure it doesn’t have as many modes as CO will have. The only similarity I can see between the two is that they both involve superheroes.”
This is interesting. Most of this, to me, are very peripheral complaints, and some I just don’t agree with. The ones which are actually gameplay-related again seem to ignore the fact that Champions is 5 years old, and still quite solid. Besides, we have yet to see how many buildings CO has to be rearranged in different ways…
“That’s where RP servers come in. Although I’m not sure if that will be in the game, it certainly belongs in a game based off of a PnP RPG.”
Uhm… Have you ever actually PLAYED on an RP server for an MMO?? They’re a joke.
“Like I said before, the kind of “best powers” you’re talking about are probably in the higher tiers of he frameworks. Therefore, the kind of people who have a little bit of everything would either be denied access to the stronger power due to having none or very few weaker powers in that ability’s framework or only be able to select that power at the last levels of the game, when they have enough powers from any other framework.”
Why do you think this will be any sort of limitation? MMO players are notorious for playing for the endgame. They may progress within a theme, but once they get to the high levels they’ll simply respec around to the optimized mishmash, once all the restrictions come off.
You may be right, but I have complete faith in MMO players to game the system at the expense of anything in the theme.
“For example, if you wanted the strongest Ranged Targeted AoE ability in the Fire framework, you would need at least 5 other fire powers, or 8 other powers from other frameworks. If you go the latter route, all those powers must be non energy- building. Thing about it, if you had 8 non-energy building powers and one super strong power, you would still suck because you would run out of energy in a couple of moves.”
Courtesy Syp’s link to the power sets I took a look, and I’m not sure this works out the way you’re thinking it would.
There only seems to be one energy builder power in each set – the very first one. With 12 powers in a set, it doesn’t seem terribly restrictive to say that one of those 12 doesn’t count towards the pre-reqs. I think it probably has more to do with keeping people from taking a lot of small, fast energy builders, but that’s a guess.
To their credit, at least the secondary effects (Negative Ions, Clinging Flames) and such seem to encourage cohesion, as they provide additional benefits for follow-up powers in the same set. It remains to be seen if those benefits outweigh the flexibility and single-effect optimization of pick-and-choose builds.
Writing your character’s history isn’t exactly “fun” for most people who aren’t skilled writers, and it doesn’t add anything to your own enjoyment of the game anyway.
“Besides, we have yet to see how many buildings CO has to be rearranged in different ways…”
Who cares? So far, there is only one “City” zone. They’re allowed to have some repeated buildings within the same city. In CoX, nearly EVERY zone is a city. There are few differences between most zones. Do you honestly expect CO to include buildings from Millenium City in the underwater Lemuria? Monster Island? The Canadian wilderness? I don’t think so.
“They may progress within a theme, but once they get to the high levels they’ll simply respec around to the optimized mishmash, once all the restrictions come off.”
The restrictions wouldn’t “come off” if you decided to respec. You still would have to rebuild your character from step 1 like everyone else. It isn’t like you’d be able rechoose all the high tier powers because you got to the highest level. Maybe I didn’t clarify; you get the strongest powers from having alot of requirement powers, which you get from leveling. So if you respec, you’d still have the same amount of powers and restrictions even if your at the highest level.
Even so, it’s not like the population of CoX isn’t mostly made up of incoherent characters, even with the games restrictions. I see a character whose name in itself betrays their archetype. They’ll actually include words like “stalker” in their character’s name and then choose the brute archetype. Even Paragon Studios are starting to get a little crazy with the powerset proliferation. Claws for Brutes? Broad Swords for stalkers?
CO will be just as crazy as any other Superhuman mmorpg, and not a drop more. If you a group of active friends you can team with who take the game seriously, it shouldn’t bother you.
I’d really love to argue with you some more, Buhallin, but my CO closed Beta key just arrived a day early. Now I’m off to see just how many serious characters there are firsthand.
“Writing your character’s history isn’t exactly “fun” for most people who aren’t skilled writers, and it doesn’t add anything to your own enjoyment of the game anyway.”
That’s a debatable point – I quite enjoy having a character with a coherent background. I never claimed CoH was perfect for cohesion – but limiting people to two tightly-themed power sets is a lot better than the scattershot mess CO will inspire.
“Who cares? So far, there is only one “City” zone. They’re allowed to have some repeated buildings within the same city. In CoX, nearly EVERY zone is a city. There are few differences between most zones. Do you honestly expect CO to include buildings from Millenium City in the underwater Lemuria? Monster Island? The Canadian wilderness? I don’t think so.”
Now you’re just being pedantic. How many caves/wilderness maps will the Canadian Wildernass map have to rearrange? From what you list there, CoH matches – buildings, sewers, tech, caves. There’s more on both sides. CO has yet to be shown with any greater variety of maps.
“Even so, it’s not like the population of CoX isn’t mostly made up of incoherent characters, even with the games restrictions. I see a character whose name in itself betrays their archetype. They’ll actually include words like “stalker” in their character’s name and then choose the brute archetype. Even Paragon Studios are starting to get a little crazy with the powerset proliferation. Claws for Brutes? Broad Swords for stalkers?”
Well, again – CoH not perfect, but at least better. And what’s the problem with the powerset proliferation? Stalkers had Ninja Blade from the beginning, why is a different style of sword less stalker-y? There are plenty of brutish character in comics who have claws – Pitt pops to mind, and Sabertooth is almost certainly more Brute than Scrapper.
On the power front, you’re still missing the point… I’m not sure what the total number of powers is, but from the revealed sets no power needs more than 8 other powers. Assuming the first will always be an energy builder, that means that after your ninth power all the stops are off. Even then, that’s only for the top two – after 5, you’ve got access to 90% of the powers, and can freely pick whatever you want.
The only thing I can see that might be a limitation is that there’s a bit of ambiguity in how the prereqs are phrased – is it any 8 powers, or 8 powers from a single set?
Again, we’re just going to disagree on this. But I have a lot of faith in the MMO community to vindicate my vision…