Video/Detail on 360 MMO "Champions Online"

[Queasy]

Link

February 22, 2008 - When Cryptic Studios announced it was developing a brand new superhero MMORPG, we had just one question: Why make a new game when you already have City of Heroes? While City of Heroes has been a success, it is also showing its age. Cryptic wanted to create an MMO fit for the new generation of PC and console gaming. The Champions universe (based on the tabletop RPG) is the perfect fit for what Cryptic hopes to accomplish with its newest endeavor.

For those reading this who aren't nerds, Champions is a popular paper-and-pen role-playing game. Since the first edition of the Champions tabletop game was released in 1981, the HERO role-playing system has since evolved into one of the most respected around, primarily for its robust character creation system. Champions Online takes many of the ideas of the tabletop game and reshapes it to fit the needs of a massively multiplayer online game. The essence of the tabletop game remains as the character creation system is expected to be one of the deepest we've seen in a videogame.

Though Cryptic is remaining, well, cryptic about the details of character creation, a few details have been revealed. Champions Online's motto is "total customization." Along with fully customizable costumes, you'll also be able to put your own creative stamp on your characters' powers. This includes selecting the appearance of your powers. Want the Crimson Commando to have a red force field and an energy blast that's a jet of hot flames? You can do so with Champions Online. If the character creation system is anything like the tabletop game, you will also be able to select specific advantages and limitations for your powers to turn a set of common base powers into something unique to your character.

Champions Online takes the character creation a step farther by having you also design your hero's arch nemesis. You choose your adversary's name, powers and costume. Remember, a foil is often the reflection of his or her darker half. Whoever you create will torment you throughout your superhero career.

Cryptic promises thousands of heroes will be online at one time, each with their own arch nemesis (along with many other enemies and threats). Those thousands of PCs and NPCs won't be crowded into a single city. Instead, Cryptic is tapping into the vast Champions universe for its MMO. You may live in futuristic Millennium City, but you'll travel to Canada, the moon, the underwater city of Lemuria, and the mystical dimension Qliphotic. Make sure your passport is up to date.

The Champions universe aged and evolved over its 27-year history. Cities have been destroyed. Organizations have come and gone. Villains and heroes have died (and stayed dead). That's certainly an element Cryptic Studios plans to exploit in Champions Online. While classic villains such as Doctor Destroyer, Mechanon and the evil organization VIPER will likely remain constants in the universe, major events will occur that will have a lasting effect on the online community. The game world you enter in 2009 won't be the same one you're playing in come 2012.

How will you handle the numerous enemies that threaten the universe? With real-time action-oriented combat, of course. Gone is the MMO staple of single-button "automated" combat. You won't have to worry about lengthy recharge times or even a hint of waiting for your turn either. The action is going to be fast and, according to Cryptic, will require you to use tactics to defeat tougher enemies.

There's still quite a lot to be learned about Champions Online, but it appears Cryptic Studios is on the right track. Champions Online ships in spring 2009 on PC and Xbox 360.

So, now the 360 has two MMOs in the pipeline with this and APB. The PS3 has The Agency and some other MMO (DC Comics?). I guess we'll find out if MMOs are viable on consoles and playable with controllers in the next year or so.

 

[randay]

I really didnt like city of heroes, I hope they do it better. But to go from marvel branding to "champions".... that can't be good.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: randay
I really didnt like city of heroes, I hope they do it better. But to go from marvel branding to "champions".... that can't be good.

Reading around on the comments from Cryptic, it sounds like they learned their lesson from City of Heroes. They made alot of mistakes and learned from them. Hopefully, they'll be able to pull this off.

 

[CKDragon]

I'm a superhero junkie and I rather liked City of Heroes. Of course, it's the only MMO I've ever played more than a one week demo so that may have had something to do with it... 😛

I never developed a group of friends to play it with regularly so my fascination died off after 3 months or so.

 

[RandomFool]

I liked CoH. It wasn't perfect but I thought it was much more fun than WoW during the first 15 levels mostly because there were always lots of random people to group with. I didn't find people (outside of higher level friends) to group with in WoW until ~15. Of course I only played CoH until level 17 and WoW until 21, I'm not much of an MMO person.

 

[Beev]

I'll copy/paste a friends response from a different forum:

I watched that video, and I actually have a few concerns based upon the video and upon my knowledge of Cryptic and the CoH/V franchise.

1) First concern is that the game engine and game itself looks almost TOO Much like CoH. It looks like the same game engine with a few more exotic locations. My concern here is that if the game looks and feels too much like CoH, there won't be much of a reason to play one over the other.

2) My next concern is with the development cycle of CoH/V. The core gameplay of CoH has always been a blast, but it is often (and rightfully so) accused of being too one-dimensional. Every mission is the same, and there is no variety of gameplay. Cryptic was way too slow at patching in things to allieviate this problem. Yes, they added the arena, and pvp, and crafting, but it was too little too late, and many of those features remain un-used and unbalanced. Even when it was new, the colliseum/arena feature was never utilized. And pvp was tacked on as an afterthought, and they made little to no effort to balance the classes. And while the Crafting system was a nice attempt, It didn't add much depth since each recipe is a one-time use only. The bottom line is that I'm concerned that Champions Online will be a fairly one-dimensional game, simply because of the track record of Cryptic.

3) Finally, I am concerned by the fact that the game is being co-developed for th 360. I have nothing against consoles, and I have nothing against the 360 in particular, but as we've seen from Final Fantasy 11, a menu-based interface is rather clunky and much more tedious than need be. Because the 360 does not have a keyboard/mouse as default hardware, they will be *required* to develop for a 8 button control scheme (or however many buttons the 360 controller has). This will lead to dumbed-down gameplay and a clunky interface.

Cryptic spent a whole lot of time and resourses developing patches and new content that nobody was particularly asking for, and nobody particularly wanted (specifically talking about pvp and arenas).

Also, I was always hugely disappointed with the final product of CoV. They spent 2 years developing an expansion, only to release a game that was basically CoH with a few new costumes. They got incredibly lazy with their class design for the villains. It never sat very well with me that other than Mastermind, all other Villain ATs were near mirror images of their hero counterparts. Especially when there are so many as-of-yet untapped superpowers available for them to use.

I just don't think they made wise use of their development time or resources. As I said before, I love the core gameplay of CoH, but I also think they could've turned it into so much more than they did. They have a whole lot of untapped potential with that game.

I think he's fairly accurate.

 

[Queasy]

Here is some of what Cryptic's Jack Emmert had to say at GDC:

Cryptic Studios cofounder and former City of Heroes/City of Villains design lead Jack Emmert gave a brief talk at this year's Game Developer's Conference about the use of episodic content in massively multiplayer online games. Emmert presented a timeline that covered the development and release history of COH/COV, noting that Cryptic's original intent (based on the advice of publisher NCsoft) was to provide 400 hours of gameplay in the initial release, and supplement it with additional gameplay updates every three months (the premise, Emmert said, was to "complete the game as we go").

While that plan definitely did its job with regard to providing increased amounts of content (11 major updates in 39 months -- which allegedly kept bringing lapsed players back and held subscription numbers quite steady), Emmert pointed out that problems arose with the content itself: COH/COV offered players no real goals outside of leveling up their superhero characters; instanced missions were (and still are) very repetitive; and the initial launch lacked PVP, had no tangible endgame experience for high-level players, and -- Emmert argued -- provided no real purposes for player-made guilds to exist. Most of these systems were slotted for later inclusion or revamping, though in hindsight, Emmert cautions MMO developers to always build their games with an eye toward accommodating these types of major new additions, as it's very difficult to create them from scratch at a later date. Specifically on the subject of PVP, Emmert said, "If you don't have it at launch, you can never have it."

Emmert -- who is notorious in hardcore COH/COV fan circles for his controversial game-balancing decisions -- also touched on the subject of "nerfs" to player abilities, citing equality between the game's various classes as his key motivator when deciding what abilities to depower. He also recalled his own shocking discovery at just how far players would go to exploit overpowered abilities (such as COH/COV's flight and superspeed powers) in the name of rapid advancement. And for all the moaning and groaning some players have done in response to some of the changes, Emmert offered this interesting insider tidbit: "No nerf ever caused a statistical drop in [COH/COV's] subscription base."

Overall, Emmert's look back at the game and its problems was surprisingly honest and self-critical -- although, with his and Cryptic's forthcoming superhero MMO Champions Online (based on the Champions tabletop role-playing game) on the horizon, we couldn't help but sense a bit of competitive drive fueling Emmert's dissertation.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Queasy

So, now the 360 has two MMOs in the pipeline with this and APB. The PS3 has The Agency and some other MMO (DC Comics?). I guess we'll find out if MMOs are viable on consoles and playable with controllers in the next year or so.

Also Tom Clancy's Endwar, which will be a sort of MMORTS as I understand it.